The Western Road
by Teyke
Summary: Steve and Tony go on an epic road trip to save the world. [Sequel to Faith]
1. The Late Return

A/N: While I normally don't see much of a difference between reading stories on FFN or elsewhere, in this case this fic does have some special formatting, starting in chapter 4, that FFN simply won't allow. I've approximated it with the limited formatting that _is_ allowed, but if you'd like to read it in its original form, I'd advise you instead read it on the AO3. There's a link in my profile.

Aside from Marvel, this story also borrows _extremely_ heavily from _Journey to the West. _

* * *

The first indication that the mission was going to go FUBAR had actually been back on the Helicarrier, when the SHIELD technician had said, "Now, when you fire it on wide-beam, it tends to vibrate too strongly for most people to hang onto, but someone with superhuman strength – uh, such as yourself – should have no problem. You just need to have a firm grip," while in the background, Clint doubled over laughing.

The second indication had been when the technician, and the technician's superior, and _his_ superior, had all agreed that a test-firing was out of the question, because, "Well, in previous tests after it's fired once it tends to need some maintenance before it's good to go again," which had made Clint – nearly recovered – lose it all over again.

So the fact that Steve was currently fucked, and not in any of the ways that had set Clint off laughing, was not actually a surprise – but when he had a super-zombie about point-one second away from ripping his head off, that was not any sort of consolation.

The guy – who looked like he was in his fifties, getting on in years – came at him in a near-blur as Steve dived out of the way, slipping on the ice coating the ground. Fortunately for his skull, the super-zombie _also_ slipped. The entire hillside in every direction northward (and somewhat southward) resembled an oddly sculpted ice-rink: though the vibrations had made it damn near impossible to _aim_ the unimaginatively named 'Ice Ray-Gun' on wide-beam (the ray-gun itself had vibrated to pieces a second ago) enough to catch the super-zombie, the visible effects that it had had were nonetheless pretty... chilling.

"Abort, abort!" Steve yelled into his comm. as he took off running; as soon as the super-zombie regained his footing he'd be about and catching up faster than Steve could hope to run, but every second of distance bought counted. "Target is live and hot, I need backup – "

Backup, these days, meant the Hulk.

Steve tried not to feel too resentful of Thor about that. Or of Tony. Right now, though, there was no time to think about it at all; he was already pivoting, skidding on the ice as he did so, instinct telling him that the attack was coming – _now_.

Flames hit the shield, melting the ice around him as he went to one knee, ducking to hide entirely behind it. The next moment he launched himself forward and up, and slammed shield-first into something heading towards him with a velocity about equal to that of a bullet train. The shield, mighty equalizer that it was, brought them both to a standstill, and while the super-zombie was still processing that fact Steve got his footing in the muddy hillside and heaved, launching the zombie upward and back down the hill. Thank the Lord that at least they couldn't fly – Steve dove out of the way of another blast of fire and jogged backward.

The zombie spit against the ground, acid-green spit that made the mud bubble, and growled with two distinct voices, "You defy us? We will _consume_ you."

"Mister, better than you have tried," Steve snapped back, but his heart wasn't in it.

At the end of the day, this guy wasn't his enemy. He was just another victim.

The zombie rushed forward.

The first time Steve had gone up against a super-zombie, he'd gotten his ass handed to him; but then he'd been weak from hunger and nearly becoming a zombie himself. He was still nowhere near fast enough to keep up to _this_ zombie, but he had the shield on guard, and it took the full force of the first few blows – as though the zombie couldn't believe that it could withstand the hits. That was fine by Steve; it was when the zombie gave up trying to _hit_ it and started grabbing at it, instead, to try to pull it away, that he was going to get into trouble – and it didn't take longer than five clumsy but super-strength punches. Steve twisted under and to the side, kicking out the creature's knee long enough to get it down, get it off him, so he could back-off and resume guard. It had no real sense of how to fight – just pure brute strength, speed, and – he ducked behind his shield again – the ability to breathe fire. And spit acid.

But that didn't mean it couldn't _learn. _The knee slid back into place almost immediately, crackling like a log in a stove, and the zombie lunged. Steve brought the shield down, but wasn't fast enough compared to the extremis-enhanced speed. Instead of blocking he only managed to slice into the creature's arm, but that healed immediately, _around_ the shield. He pushed to the side, the zombie grabbed the top edge with its other hand, and Steve's much better leverage and positioning lost to alien-and-Stark-built nanotechnology: the shield went flying, and a moment later Steve went flying too, all the wind knocked out of him by a blow that would have pulverized any other guy – one without the serum, and without the best body armour SHIELD could put out.

He was plucked out of mid-air at a punishing speed, the roar hitting him only a moment before the iron grip of the War Machine dragged him up,_up_. Below them, the super-zombie screeched and leapt – but although it could equal their height, it had no real manoeuvrability in the air, and Rhodey evaded easily.

"My shield," Steve gasped, the moment he could breathe. They were _far_ up, now, hiding in the low clouds.

_"__We'll get it when Hulk's done with him," _Rhodey replied shortly.

Steve couldn't argue with that. Didn't mean he couldn't argue with Rhodey, though. "What're you doing out here?" His voice was breathy; the height was making it harder than it ought to have been to get his wind back. Or maybe the zombie had hit him harder than he'd thought. "You're supposed to be in Asia." The western edge of it, sure, but that was still far enough that Rhodey had to have been on his way before Steve had even left the Helicarrier.

_"__Yeah, well, a half-hour ago I heard my team lead had gone all suicidal,"_ Rhodey bit back, his voice colder than the frigid clouds surrounding them.

Son of a – "You heard wrong." He made his voice flat – flat, and nothing more. Rhodey _was_ wrong, but if he'd gotten _this_ idea into his head – damn it. He'd thought Rhodey trusted him. They worked well together.

_ "__Really, man?" _Rhodey demanded. _"__Banner was three minutes out when you put out that mayday – you lasted less than a minute. You wanna tell me what the hell – "_

"You _grabbed _me after less than a minute," Steve snapped, and then barely bit down on a snarl of frustration – against himself. Arguing about this was worse than useless. "I know what I'm – "

_"__I'm not having this conversation with you while we're a couple thousand feet up and you can't fly, Captain,"_ Rhodey interrupted.

Steve stamped on the urge to growl, 'Retired.' Even the people at SHIELD who thought he was crazy still called him Captain.

And that was pretty much everybody.

"You were _told_ it couldn't be used continuously," Dr. Martell said, her voice hitting a tone of complaint just short of whining. "Three short bursts –_two_, ideally!"

"It was vibrating all over the place," Steve said evenly. "Even Hawkeye couldn't have hit that thing with it." He tried not to feel too much irritation at Martell – like everyone else in her division, she'd been working long, exhausting hours for the past three months, and it showed in every line on her face, in the long bags under her eyes.

"The moisture content of the air..." suggested Dr. Belgrade.

"We worked that problem out."

"But with the pressure changes from transport – "

Fury cut off the scientists before they could really get into the argument. "Gentlemen. Ladies. I expect you'll want to continue work on the prototypes – _immediately_. I don't have to remind you of the time limits we're facing."

"Sir," Martell said, shoving her chair back and leaving. The others quickly followed suit, leaving Steve the only one sitting at the table – Fury never seemed to actually sit down anywhere.

"You're sure Agent Barton couldn't have managed that shot?" Fury asked after a moment.

"Positive, sir." And not just because Clint would need a mount to handle it; the gun weighed a good three hundred pounds. Otherwise, the mission would have _been_ Clint's, for all that it was really less a 'gun' and more a directed bomb. If Engineering hadn't been split sixty-forty on whether they'd be able to integrate it with the War Machine without compromising the suit, Rhodey would have been SHIELD's second choice for today's test-run.

The freeze-bomb wasn't a final solution – that, SHIELD was still working on, although it seemed more hopeless with every day that went by with no further progress on tracking down Borjigin and Hansen. Both Steve and Rhodey had retrieved extremis samples from across Asia, but so far the stuff adapted to whatever 'anti-virus' code the techs cooked up to throw at it, and twice it had become so much more lethal in the process that they'd nearly lost containment.

A month ago, they _had_ lost containment, and a good thirty-three people with it. Since then, progress on that front had slowed to a crawl.

Shapanka's wrist-blaster freeze-ray was only good if they could actually nail the zombies with it: easy enough when it came to the regular ones, but extremis gave the enhanced such good reflexes that they could see the beam coming at them and avoid it easily. Larger setups, though, increased massively in size and _decreased_ massively in portability, making them worthless at hunting down fast-moving, tiny targets; today's test-run had been the first real 'portable' prototype that had even had a chance at working. Conventional weaponry was next to useless against them: unless it was a direct hit (and even sometimes if it was) they healed immediately, and they could dodge almost anything, unless they had a reason to stick around. A target.

Hence, the Hulk. But the Hulk, though he'd given it a few good shots, couldn't smash all of them, and was becoming more and more reluctant to smash _any_ of them. Slowly, but surely, the idea that these people were innocent, that they'd been taken over by something else, had worked its way into Hulk's brain. And he didn't like it any more than the rest of them did.

Fury stared at Steve a moment longer, like he was contemplating something – or maybe he was just trying to make Steve squirm. It wasn't, Steve thought morosely, something he needed encouragement to do, not when he knew that Bruce was in for another night of sedation, lest he Hulk out from screaming nightmares about squishing heads in his fists. It was Clint's turn on Hulk-watch tonight, fortunately, though if Steve didn't think he'd only be a reminder of the day's work, he'd have ensconced himself in the chair outside Bruce's room anyway.

Finally, Fury nodded. "Dismissed."

"Sir."

Outside in the hallways, agents let their eyes slide past him; Steve ignored them and tried not to feel too alone. His team had other assignments – Rhodey hadn't even fully landed on the Helicarrier, just dropped Steve to the deck and then taken off; Natasha was still in France; and Clint was spotting for Bruce, or rather, the Hulk. He couldn't begrudge any of them for not being there, especially not when Fury's only comment about Rhodey's intervention had been a mild, "He made good time," and an assurance that retroactive orders were being issued to cover any appearance of disobedience.

Fury was willing to believe Steve's whole story about alternate worlds and dimensions, even though he knew that Steve wasn't telling him everything. Steve wasn't sure what he'd done to earn that trust, but if even Fury thought that Steve had been an idiot in planning this mission...

_You should talk to your shrink, Rogers,_ he told himself. It sounded like a mix of Fury and Tony in his head.

He should _not_ punch the wall, so he made himself relax his fists, and then he headed for the hanger and the chance that someone might be flying back to New York in the next few hours.

The drab brown walls of his apartment were a dismal 'welcome back'. Two months, and he still hadn't gotten around to putting up any pictures or paintings. But every time he thought about it, there was the niggling feeling that if he started trying to make the apartment _feel_ like home, it actually would _become_ home – permanently.

A month ago Tony's – the other Tony's – remains had disappeared from his coffin, which had gotten Dr. Foster excited, although when Tony failed to show up in his place everyone else had stopped caring. Two and a half months ago, Tony had sworn he'd be right behind Steve._Something_ had happened – but Tony would find a way. Or Anthony would finally show up, and solve everything with a snap of his fingers. Or maybe SHIELD would move portal research off the backburner. _Something_.

When he didn't want to dwell on the reasons why these might become his long-term accommodations, Steve told himself it didn't matter because he spent so little time here anyway. Half the nights he bunked with Bruce; most of the days he spent training on the Helicarrier or on solo missions into zombiefied territory, scouting and gathering samples that others couldn't, not with any relative degree of safety. Really, this place was just a spot to crash and sleep occasionally. For all that it was located in Brooklyn, it would never be home. Not like his apartment with Bucky had been, and not Stark Tower had been.

The locks clicked shut behind him automatically, and Steve shucked his shield and bag onto the living room table before wandering into the kitchen to grab something to eat. In the old days JARVIS would have kept the fridge ready with gourmet meals; now, if he wanted something like that, he had to buy it and cook it himself, but SHIELD did do him the favour of keeping the freezer fully stocked with ready-to-microwave meals. His throat closed up for a moment at the thought of JARVIS – and then he breathed through his nose, and put the thought out of his mind.

His tablet lay where he'd abandoned it this morning on the counter; he thumbed it on, and the NYT article he'd barely started reading popped up immediately.

_Monday, February 17th, 2014__  
__STARK TOWER GOES DARK_

_Last night, at 3:42 AM, the lights on New York City's tallest building went out. Its arc reactor – the revolutionary, ultra-secret technology that the late Tony Stark had claimed would change the world forever – has run out, three months before its projected deadline._

_"__The building has already been reconnected to the city's power grid," lead federal investigator James Gallaghan said this morning in a brief press conference. "The arc reactor was designed to power the Tower for a year. In the days after the Chintauri Invasion, Stark Industries provided power to nearly half the city. They were aware that this would shorten the lifespan of the reactor accordingly and disclosed this information to us at the outset of this investigation."_

_But the windows on most floors of Stark Tower remain dark. Stark Industries, once a corporate titan, is no longer listed on any stock exchange. An estimated 99.8% of its assets have been frozen or seized by governments both foreign and domestic. Nearly six hundred thousand former SI employees are currently looking for work – but no one is eager to hire anyone who worked for the creators of the nanoplague. No one is eager to occupy the levels of Stark Tower, either. The Avengers, Stark's burgeoning team of superheroes who came together to save the city nine months ago, relocated just before Christmas; the last sub-letting office, Dyson Printing Inc, moved out last Thursday. The only remaining 'tenants' are Gallaghan and his army of investigators, who are still combing the former NY corporate headquarters for any clue that might shine light on how or why the nanoplague was created – and how it can be stopped._

_It's an investigation that has come increasingly under fire from the international community as the nanoplague's death toll rises. The cover-up of Stark's suicide was orchestrated by a US government agency; the first outbreak didn't occur until days after his death. While SHIELD claims the creation of the nanoplague was solely the work of now-internationally-wanted terrorists Tem Borjigin and Maya Hansen, there is no denying that its development took place within SI facilities. Leaked reports from within the agency have pointed to Stark funding the project personally._

_The public pressure is beginning to add up. A recent NYT survey showed that 74% of responders believed Stark must have had a greater role in the development of the technological virus than SHIELD is willing to admit. 36% went further, agreeing with the opinion that Stark's still-unconfirmed suicide was related to the nanoplague. For experienced political watchers, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Meetings on..._

There was a knock at his door.

Steve stood and carried the tablet back into the living room where his shield was, switching the screen over to bring up his apartment's security cameras instead. If a reporter had managed to get past the outer security again – but, no.

The man waving unerringly at the hidden camera was tall, maybe only an inch shorter than Steve, mid-twenties – though the backpack he was wearing made him seem younger – blond, clean-shaven. He didn't _seem_ to have a camera or mic – but then, if he was familiar enough with stealth surveillance tech to locate the one hidden over Steve's door, the lack of an obvious camera didn't mean anything. There was something about him that seemed familiar – something that was pinging alarm bells in Steve's brain. He gave the guy another once-over: sneakers, cargo-pants, sporty jacket – nothing that stood out –

Blond, clean-shaven – but his skin didn't really match the _shade_ of blond –

Steve's brain helpfully imposed a goatee over his visitor's face, and he dropped the tablet back onto the table. "Son of a gun."

Another knock. How had he gotten past the front door? How the _hell_ was SHIELD not picking this up? No, those were stupid questions. Steve grabbed his shield and threw open the door, tugging the guy inside quickly and letting the door fall shut.

"Steve!" Tony – _a _Tony – said, smiling brightly.

"What reality are you from?" he demanded. "And why are you here?"

The Tony's face fell, and his eyes slid off to the side. "Uh, well – okay, I deserved that."

"What?"

His eyes flicked back up to meet Steve's. They didn't match his hair either – too dark by far. This close, Steve could see the faintest beginnings of dark roots beneath a dye job that would have made Natasha frown with professional disapproval. "Um. I'm... from this reality."

Steve stared at him.

"Hi?" Tony offered, smiling weakly.

"You – " Steve set his shield down and glared at him. "You complete – _bastard_."

"Surprise?" Tony sighed, and lost the smile. "If I could have told you earlier – " he raised his hands, as if in defense, and then dropped them again, back to his sides. "But I didn't think – "

He broke off with a not-quite squawk when Steve stepped forward and pulled him into a hug. "You idiot," Steve growled at him after a long moment. He couldn't quite bring himself to let go just yet. Tony was _alive_ – real, solid, warm. Living. _Blond_, for some reason. "You – _bastard_."

"I – um," Tony mumbled into his shoulder. He'd tensed up when Steve had hugged him, but now he was slowly relaxing. "I couldn't tell you earlier. It took me a while to – uh, to get back – "

"You _lied_," Steve stepped back, releasing Tony from the hug, although he kept a grip on his upper arms. He couldn't quite bring himself to let Tony out of reach just yet. "You said you'd be right behind me – "

"I was supposed to be!" Tony protested. "But the ring portal – broke, and then I had to use the one I cooked up for you – "

"You said you'd be _right behind me_," Steve said again, resisting the urge to shake him. "I spent four hours watching a corpse and half-thinking it was _you_, damn it – most of SHIELD thinks I've completely lost it, and you – you're – " He stared at Tony, not knowing how to put in to words everything in the last two and a half months, grief and worry and fear – "You're _blond!"_

"Yeah, I dyed it," Tony said, seizing upon the new topic eagerly. He raised one hand to push half-heartedly at Steve's hand and, equally reluctantly, Steve dropped that one back to his side. He kept the other hand on Tony's arm. "It makes me look like an idiot," truer words had never been spoken, in Steve's opinion, "but I think we already proved pretty conclusively that shaving is an insufficient disguise – "

"The growing four inches and losing twenty years helps," Steve deadpanned. Humour, because he hadn't the first clue what to think of it – and because the relief was making him feel giddy.

What in God's name had happened to him?

Tony's face crinkled with indignation. "_Ten_ years – "

Steve rolled his eyes.

"_Fifteen_ years – " Tony amended, still so full of bullshit, and Steve grabbed him and hugged him again. " – and glad to see you too – need to breathe, breathing, Cap, s'good idea – "

"I thought you were _dead_," Steve mumbled, and he felt/heard Tony sigh before the other man brought up his arms to hug Steve back. "_Again_."

"I'm not sorry," Tony said, half-hearted and tired. "It was for the best."

The words felt like a punch in the gut. Steve let him go and backed off, retreating around the table. _How_ could Tony think that? What the hell had he been doing? "How are you – what happened?" he asked instead. "Magic? Some sort of spell? Did Anthony come back?"

"Ah – no, no, and no," Tony said, his eyes sliding to the side again. Oh, Lord. How bad was it if Tony wasn't even _trying_ to lie about it properly? "Which I'm sort of worried about – I did eventually manage to get a ring portal active, obviously – go me, fixed that problem, but it took a while to rebuild and I thought he'd get to it sooner – "

"Tony," Steve cut him off. "What happened?"

Tony didn't reply – not verbally. But his gaze flicked over to the tablet, still lying on the table; Steve followed his glance, and watched as – apparently of its own volition – the screen turned on and the security program flipped back to the newspaper article he'd been reading.

_...Today marks the twelve-week anniversary of the release of the nanoplague. According to estimates from the WHO, nearly 90-million people have been infected; more than half of those are now dead. But the total indirect death toll is even higher. As countries close their borders and put up armed guards, international trade and travel has ground to a halt. Aid to quake victims in Southeast Asia has ceased almost entirely, with shipments of food, building, and medical supplies backed up at international borders. Refugee camps in the Middle East make tempting targets for the so-called 'super-zombies'..._

What? And also – what? How was Tony controlling the tablet? JARVIS? Steve felt his heart give a lurch of hope at the thought.

The article scrolled down, and then clicked over to the next page – and then the next. The words stood out from the screen: _...hidden funding beneath Stark Medical, leading to some speculation that the purpose wasn't to create super-soldiers. Dr. Elizabeth Dean, professor at the University of Philadelphia, is one of those who thinks that extremis' original purpose was non-military. "The unique thing about it isn't that it makes its victims mindless – plenty of conventional drugs can do that. But the astonishing healing factor – "_

Oh, no. Healing factor? Tony had lost two decades and grown whole inches.

Healing factor. Human _enhancement_.

"No," Steve said. "You didn't." He _couldn't_ have, could he? Extremis didn't _work_ – that was the entire problem, it was broken, it turned people into _zombies_ –

"In my defense," Tony raised his hands, a half-hearted attempt to placate, "I was dying, or – close enough to it, anyway."

Steve stared at him.

"I got – attacked." He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared back at Steve mulishly. "It was your idea?"

"_What_?" That came rather closer to a shout than Steve had intended. "It was _not – _"

"Well, okay, I could have been hallucinating that, like I said, I was _dying_ – "

"Who attacked you?" Who had been _left_? Had ULTRON come back to life somehow? Had Natasha betrayed them? He quashed _that_ thought immediately. He hadn't been wrong about her – he _hadn't_.

"Somebody from that reality, nobody you've... met," Tony said, but he was obviously hedging. He met Steve's eyes and smiled ruefully. "It's complicated – more complicated than I told you. I... couldn't say everything, not then. I still can't. Somebody might hear – I'll tell you about that, though, too, because," he picked up the tablet triumphantly, "I can write it out, and we can go over this on the way. I'd like to get going – we're wasting time."

"Time before what?" Why _was_ he here? After months of letting Steve think he was dead – of letting _everybody_ think he was dead?

"I infected myself with extremis," Tony said bluntly, meeting Steve's eyes challengingly. Whatever he thought he was going to see there – Steve didn't know, but Tony looked away, down at the tablet instead. He switched over from the news to the interior cameras – SHIELD was honest about placing them, at least, even if Steve hated them. Tony even bothered to tap the controls with his fingers, this time.

"For some reason, I didn't go crazy," Tony continued, now quiet. "I didn't get the, uh, full superpowers, either. I mean, I tried, I was dying anyway, I figured, why not grow three inches _and_ run faster than sound? – but whenever I reach too far, it starts... getting loud, in my head." He shuddered, and it looked like an unconscious motion.

"You infected yourself with extremis," Steve said flatly. It was a stupid thing, echoing Tony like a parrot, but it was say it or go over and bang his head against the wall until Tony's actions started making sense. Who, even while dying, thought the answer lay in zombie-hood?

"But I'm not a zombie."

"I can see that!"

"When I figured out I could, I recoded parts of it," Tony explained, hurrying a bit more now, "While it was recoding me, so it was kinda a rush job. Some... I couldn't. I firewalled it off – there's these linkups out there, it's a hive-mind – something I _never_ designed. I've been trying to hack into it, see if I could gain control of the network and make it _stop_, but I go too close and it becomes hard to think." He grimaced.

"And it's getting worse?" Steve extrapolated, even more alarmed. With the rate the nanoplague was spreading –

"What? No," Tony said, apparently startled that it was even a consideration. "I told you, firewalls. That's not the point - every minute, more people are becoming infected, more people are dying. I've tried to stop it." His expression, for all that he was obviously struggling for composure, was one of muted anguish – and then, like a switch had been flicked, that composure was achieved and his voice became calm, earnest. "Please believe me, Steve, I have _tried_. But this tech – it's beyond me. I hate to admit it – Jesus Christ, I hate it – but it is. There's too much I don't understand of it, too much weirdness that Borjigin tossed in – you could even say _alien_ness." He raised his eyebrows significantly.

"You have a plan," Steve said, because he had to – it was Tony, after all. And he was _here_.

"Maklu owes Earth wergild – I propose we ask them for the cure. I've built a portal that can take us there. I want you to come with me." His gaze was frank, direct. "Promised you I wouldn't do this alone."

Steve rolled his eyes, and, stubbornly, took a seat at the table. "Why not involve SHIELD?" Because that was a damn thin line for Tony to be treading, after six months of being admittedly hallucinating and paranoid, and another ten weeks of _nothing_.

"Bigger organizations, bigger risks – come on, you know that _he_ has his fingers inside it, I know you know that – I read the reports, Steve. And I read _your_ report, too – you never told me that part where you went and chatted up the Chief Magistrate – "

"You could go directly to Fury. He'd keep it small, within the team – "

"What, and give Fury the perfect scapegoat? Waste six months trying to prove my self from an alternate reality was the one who fucked us over?" Tony snapped. Steve narrowed his eyes; the other Tony might have triggered the Skynet Protocol, but it had been _Tony_ who had hired Hansen and Borjigin... and who had regained the memories that had driven him crazy shortly before Steve had last seen him. He'd said that it would be fine, but how far could Steve trust that? "Not worth it. Bruce is a problem – I can't shield him, he's a... beacon," Tony said, fumbling for the word. "He stands out, and everybody nearby him stands out. So. I take you, that leaves Clint and Natasha to stay here – you know they work best as a team."

"Rhodey – "

" – is about one step away from being court-martialled and today's stunt didn't help things. He's too close to me." Guilt, in his voice and in his eyes. "There're too many people who want to take the armour away from him and I'm _not_ going to be the reason they strip his rank trying."

"Thor could – "

"_Names_," said Tony, and it was half a snarl, although his expression was completely, perfectly controlled.

Steve frowned at him, searching his face for some kind of break or clue. "You said - and _Anthony_ said - it was like... calling them, right? He's an ally, even if he isn't... here."

Tony waggled his hand it from side to side, easy-going again. Normal. Frankly, kinda freaking Steve out. "Yes, sort of, though you're jumping the gun, I was worried about, well, nevermind. Call their name and they get a ring, fine, let's go with that. Ally, though – not so much." There _was_something off about his expression, a kind of brittle blankness that made Steve reach for his shield so he could run his fingers along the edge of it. "So. Not him. I'll explain on the way." The whatever-it-was in his expression smoothed out again with the return to the topic of leaving.

"You're in a hurry."

"Steve." Now it was Tony's turn to frown at him – though, being Tony, he frowned by raising an eyebrow. "If somebody in Maklu can explain a couple key points about their tech, we could shut down extremis _tomorrow._ That's anywhere between fifty thousand to ten _million _lives saved."

That was... a very good point. Steve fought against the shame that washed over him – he still had valid reasons to object. "So it's just you and me, off to demand a favour from aliens on the behalf of Earth? We don't have that kind of authority, Tony."

"You want to leave this up to _bureaucracy?"_ Tony said incredulously. "Steve, there is _no time_ - "

"There _was_ time, these last two months there was time!" Steve said, planting his palm on the table and leaning toward him. "You could have contacted us at any point – "

"That would have wasted time with – "

"That's a damn poor excuse, and you know it! You walked in here without being seen, don't tell me you couldn't have contacted SHIELD without handing yourself over! You could have kept us in the loop – we could have had this conversation two months ago!" He was standing, he realized – the chair was lying on the ground behind him, tipped over. He hadn't realized he'd stood – he grit his teeth, and this time it was directed at himself. He needed to get his temper under control. "You told me," he said, taking care to keep his voice even, "You _promised_ me you wouldn't keep trying to do this alone."

"I'm _here_, aren't I?" Tony shot back, almost petulantly, and he immediately made a face, apparently realizing how childish he sounded. "SHIELD is compromised, Steve. I couldn't even trust the EMR shielding I had, because they took it and _he_ took it from them, he's been toying with them – so who knows if he figured out how to get around it? _This_ is new stuff," he waved a hand about, as if to indicate the invisible shield present. "Not to mention all the other – look, that's not important. SHIELD has no reason to trust me and every reason to get in my way, and this is too important for that."

"Pride goeth, Tony," Steve said tightly.

Tony let one corner of his mouth quirk up in a small, sad smile. "I know. Will you come?"

Steve sighed. "Of course I'm coming. Let me pack."

"Don't bother with the suit, I've got a better one for you," Tony ordered, doing an abrupt one-eighty from muted disappointment to looking as pleased as a cat. He leaned – more _lounged, _really – against the back of a chair, tapping his fingers rapid-fire on the wood. "Saw your fight earlier – that was ridiculous, you shouldn't have to worry about fire."

That left – not a lot to take. He grabbed his coat and shoes, a water-bottle and some snacks – which he tossed at Tony; if he was going to impersonate a college student by carrying around a backpack then they might as well make use of it. Tony, though, didn't put them away, just stood there holding them with a bemused expression.

"I have to leave something for SHIELD," Steve said, going over to hunt around in the drawer for a pen and pad of paper. "They thought I was crazy the last time I came back."

"I can write one in..."

"And then you'll have to tell them you were here," Steve pointed out. Left unsaid was the question of whether or not Tony _would_ actually tell them, even now.

He clicked the pen and scribbled down, _Gone to Maklu to get help with extremis. Please water my plant. Not sure when I'll be back. _Tony – not to mention JARVIS – might be able to hack any electronic device he set his mind to, but paper would hopefully be harder.

"I hope you have a flying car," Steve muttered, checking the exterior cameras on the tablet. There were only three news teams camped outside today – when he'd first moved in, there'd been thirty, and after the one time he'd made the mistake of leaving by the front door, it had briefly increased to something that felt like three hundred. These days, he got SHIELD to drop him off on the roof – it wasn't as if he ever went anywhere except where SHIELD pointed him. He'd have felt sorry for his neighbours, except that they were all SHIELD agents, too, and half of them were probably tasked with keeping an eye on him during their downtime. He felt sorrier for the news crews, really – it was pretty clear that none of them actually wanted to be there, standing out on his doorstep in mid-February weather. In the beginning, sure, there'd been some keeners; by now those remaining were low-level reporters assigned the crap job by the higher-ups. But that didn't mean he wanted to make their day by walking out his front door where they could get a shot at him.

Tony rolled his eyes. "If I had a flying car I'd have showed it to you months ago."

True, Steve had to admit. "I'm gonna get mobbed as soon as I leave."

"Nope." Tony grinned, and strolled out the door, calling from the hallway, "Come on, Cap! Let me show you some _science_."

Steve eyed the door, then the paper – still there, still with words on it – and followed him out, letting the locks click home behind him. Tony, looking as energetic as... well, as energetic as Tony in his twenties must have been... practically _bounced_ into the emergency stairwell and down the stairs. Steve had a sudden bad feeling about this – or a worse feeling, at least. When they got to the bottom, Tony held out his hand, wiggling his fingers in invitation. "You'll love this."

Steve raised an eyebrow, but took his hand; Tony interlaced their fingers, like they were teenagers out on a date, and Steve rolled his eyes. "_Science?_" he asked pointedly.

"Yup," said Tony, and the world grew... _brighter_.

No, thought Steve, looking at the shockingly vivid blond of Tony's hair – the brilliant scarlet lining of his jacket, no longer muted – the deep chocolate-mahogany of his eyes – it wasn't _brighter_. But all the colours were suddenly _vivid_ like they'd never been before, and in that moment he wished more than anything that he had pastels with him and a blank canvas, so he could try to capture even a tenth of what he was seeing. His breath caught, stolen by the world's new beauty.

"Invisibility cloak," Tony said smugly. "I upgraded it, too – it's covering both of us, at the moment. When we get near the door I'll include it, too, so it'll look like it stayed shut – no mysteriously opening doors."

"This is amazing," Steve marvelled, looking down at him himself. His own skin was pale, was rosy, was practically glowing; the blue fabric of his jacket was like the sky on a cloudless day, out in the middle of the wide-open Midwest. Even the boring stairwell walls were transformed, every shade and shadow on their imperfect surface suddenly a masterwork of art.

"Still guzzles gas like a Ford, but the aliasing was reduced by 83% on average, so I'm calling it a win," Tony continued as he dragged them over to the door. "You good to go?"

"I want to look outside," Steve said, feeling a smile tug at the corners of his mouth.

Outside was _brilliant_, and not just because it was the first time since he'd moved in that Steve had been able to walk out his own front door without immediately getting mobbed; the news vans were set up outside, but the reporters stayed huddled near the doors, completely ignoring Steve and Tony as they wandered down the sidewalk. Steve barely paid them any attention at all: he was caught up in the _colours_. Had he ever seen a sky that shade of storm-grey before? The pathetic little trees planted by the sidewalk were transformed; the wrought iron grating over some windows had never been more foreboding; the rich reds and browns of the bricks had never before displayed so many hues. He almost didn't notice when Tony came to a stop beside a small car – green, deep green, like the ancient trees in the –

Then everything faded, and Steve had to stifle a noise of protest. _Normal_, he reminded himself – Tony had just dropped the cloak, so this was_normal_ – but compared to before it was like watching the world in grey-scale. Everything seemed less... real, somehow.

Steve shook his head. That was a dangerous thought.

"Yes, hard to believe, I know," said Tony dryly, pulling the door open for Steve – of course, of the two of them, Tony was the less recognizable now. "But it makes up for it in that it's inconspicuous."

"Tony Stark, back from the dead, driving a Volvo," Steve muttered, as he slid into the car – the seat was uncomfortably short for somebody with legs as long as his – and pulled the door shut. Tony went around to the other side, and when he'd climbed in, too, Steve finished, "Nobody'd believe it if I told 'em."

"It could've been a minivan," Tony said, with real distaste.

"That _I_ can't believe."

"Yeah, you're right," Tony agreed. "It couldn't have been." He pulled out onto the street without bothering with his turn signal and then almost immediately made an illegal left-turn into an alley.

Steve clutched at the door-handle. "Is this car secretly a tank?" he yelped.

"Cameras, Steve. Cameras everywhere. Seriously, nobody expects New York to give London a run for its money, but hey – things the government doesn't tell you, huh – the point is that I don't need to look to tell when there are cars coming. And the car has its own cameras, too, and enough of a computer that I don't actually need have my hands on the wheel."

"What, _cameras?_ Don't tell me you – "

"I told you I took extremis, Cap," said Tony, an just a tiny bit too calmly. "And that it worked for me. I can see – lots of stuff, now. The whole of the internet – it's a trip, it really is." His grin didn't reach his eyes. "Everything wireless, lots of things that aren't – everything that's a computer, it's _mine_. How did you think I was controlling your tablet? I wasn't being _subtle_, for chrissake."

"I _thought_ JARVIS was helping you," Steve said, sharp, too sharp, and he had to turn his head away, immediately regretting the words – more so, at the sound of Tony's soft intake of breath. The car careened around another corner and into traffic thick enough to force Tony to slow, at least momentarily – even if extremis had enhanced his reaction speed, there still needed to _be_ a gap to move through.

"JARVIS is dead," Tony said quietly. "He died months ago. I could bring back a copy of him, but – he'd be a new person. New JARVIS – sibling of old JARVIS, but... new. Dead is dead. Sometimes undead." He grit his teeth together hard enough that Steve could faintly hear them grinding.

New JARVIS. Dead is dead. The JARVIS whom they'd brought online after the other Tony had killed himself, when everything had first gone pear-shaped – had he just been a copy?

Didn't matter, even if he was. There were a million copies of Steve running around out there, each in their own alternate world – they were still all separate people, and most importantly, they were all _people_. There was nothing about the JARVIS that would ever make any version of him _just_ a copy.

A gap in the traffic – Steve registered it, and then registered Tony accelerating a moment later, swerving and _through_, earning himself a loud outcry as at least three other drivers leaned on their horns. Hardly keeping a low profile – Steve glanced around for cops, but of course, there weren't any. Tony would have seen. But if there were cameras –

Okay, so that was taken care of, but if somebody phoned –

...but if somebody made an actual, _in-person_ report, then they might get noticed by somebody with the authority to do something about it. It would take a while, though – they'd be long gone by then. Assuming that they didn't wind up in a car accident, with a car banged up so badly that they weren't able to go _anywhere_.

"It still wouldn't _kill you_," Steve managed, "to drive with a bit of _sanity_." He would have sworn that Tony's driving hadn't been this bad _before_.

Tony's mouth twisted; his words were a bit too tight: "Don't tell me you obeyed all the rules of the road back in Germany."

"Back in Germany I was trying to avoid enemy fire, not red lights. Getting in an accident isn't going to help anything!"

Tony sighed, but he eased his foot off the gas pedal, at least, and then instead – Steve covered his eyes with one hand – leaned all the way over into the backseat, _taking his eyes off the road_, to fish out the tablet from the backpack and toss it into Steve's lap. It made a chiming sound of activation when it landed, and Steve turned it over to see red text on a black background reading, _Question and answer time, then._ Beneath the text was the outline of a keyboard's keys, white-on-black.

Steve placed his fingers carefully – this type of keyboard really wasn't meant for people with hands as large as his – and paused. There were so many questions he had to ask – where was he even supposed to begin? Well, he could start with the mundane.

He felt reluctant to bring up JARVIS again, so quickly. And what was he supposed to say about the whole damned mess, anyway?

"How long is this trip gonna be?"

"Ah," Tony said a bit guiltily. "Well. The facility's out in Lima."

Steve stared. "Lima, _Peru?_" Why were they _driving_?

"No, Ohio."

Okay, that was... not quite as bad, but it was still at least an eight-hour drive – probably more. Steve closed his eyes and thunked his head back against the headrest.

"The car's got enough stealth tech on it that I can speed well above the limit," Tony assured him, which was not actually reassuring at all.

"Why not a jet?" he asked instead, skeptically.

"Because I haven't gotten around to stealthing one of those," Tony shrugged. "It's a bit more involved than a car. And it's sort of hard to go unnoticed at the airport these days."

That was true. Steve looked out the window as they idled in a sea of cars at a red light; an enormous electronic billboard was flashing a public health advisory, reminding citizens to _Keep Yourself Safe from the Nanovirus: 1) Avoid international travel until the crisis has passed..._ – pretty dumb advice. All non-military air travel had been shut down for months; countries had closed their borders as tight as they could go. Consumer airlines were being kept afloat by government backing, and nothing else.

But that wouldn't have been a problem if Tony hadn't still been keeping everything secret from SHIELD – with a quinjet, the trip would have take less than an hour. For all he'd been going on about hurrying, Tony valued secrecy more than he valued stopping extremis right _now_. Steve felt the corners of his mouth turn down at the confirmation.

_What couldn't you tell me back in the other world?_ he typed out. His text came out blue.

The cursor hadn't blinked more than once before the reply appeared: _Asgardians aren't human._

"Huh, I'd never thought of that."

_Ha, ha. They're _really_not human. They don't exist in space and time the way we do._

Steve blinked at the tablet. That sounded... kinda crazy, even when talking about aliens. Thor had been right there – so had Loki. But more text was already appearing with explanations, so he read on: _You've seen alternate worlds – humans on alternate worlds, they're just other versions of us. They're not the same people – very similar, but we don't have a hivemind. Asgardians do._

"What?"

_The Nine Realms are all alternate realities of each other – sort of,_ Tony wrote, which didn't help clear things up at _all_. _Without being... alternate alternate realities. Basically, if you took Earth and cloned it a couple of times back at the dawn of the planet and allowed for the space-time-'magic' differential fall-out, you'd get the Nine Realms. Then you take the Nine Realms and you clone them altogether, and you get a bunch of different alternate realities, like the one we were in._

_Then, you take all those alternate realities – let's call them a Cluster. So you have Earth, then the Nine Realms, then a Cluster, and Clusters can be copied over and over, too. They're all copies, just with different types of variations depending on what dimension they're being copied along. Generalized Foster Theory holds that there's an upper limit at the number of dimensions, and Asgardian science agrees, but a GFT says that some of those dimensions are infinite, while Asgard's science says no, they're all finite. Well, sort of. Thor's explanation got kinda mystical-mumbo-jumbo at that point, I'm not sure if he didn't get it or the SHIELD scientists interviewing him didn't. Waste of time, really, they should have let Foster do all that questioning. _

Vaguely, Steve remembered Sue Richards explaining this – but somehow, the explanation had made more sense before Tony had pitched in, when he hadn't had to think about it too hard beyond the fact that alternate realities were somehow real. Plus, he'd been distracted with all their mentions of gods at the time.

"Um. What?"

Tony sighed. _...Think of Earth like a marble._

"Okay."

_Although it's not just our Earth, it's our... 3D universe. The solar system, the galaxy, everything you could fly a spaceship to - it's all one marble._

"...Okay."

_Now, there's a bunch of other marbles all like, but they're... I don't know, different in size or shape, or whatever. They're similar – they're made out of the same stuff – but they're... uh, different. And if you wanted to get from one marble to another you couldn't just walk around on your own marble. You'd have to, hmm, hop. _

Tony was pretty bad at metaphors, Steve thought, but he nodded anyway.

_Well, you... keep marbles in a bag, right? One of those little netted things. Okay, so you've got a set of marbles in a bag. Those are the Nine Realms. There's more than nine marbles, but nothing humans have ever named after numbers is accurate – look at the Hundred Year War._

"Tony."

_Right, off-track. So you have a bag full of marbles. Now... imagine you're a marble store. You sell lots of sets of marbles! So you have an entire stockroom full of bags of marbles – that's the Cluster. And... if you're a chain marble store, then you've got other stores elsewhere that have their own rooms full of marbles, and those are other clusters. But compared to getting between marbles within a bag, or between bags within the same room, they're... really far away. It takes a lot of power to travel from one to another._

"Okay, I get that," Steve said. "I don't understand why it's... important. It's still – " he caught himself, and typed, _It's still an alternate reality._

_Humans exist on a single world,_ Tony replied._Your alternate reality self – he's not you. He's just a guy like you. But Asgardians exist over Clusters. The interaction between one world and another can be limited – but they're all the same person. The Thor back in the reality we visited is the same as the one here – they're different personalities, appearances... but there's a connection between them. They're the same person, in the end._

"How does that work?" Steve eyed the tablet, and then, realizing that was a bit ridiculous, eyed Tony in the seat next to him. "How do you even_know_ that?"

_In every Cluster, every marble store, there's one central, prime set of Nine Realms – um, like a really expensive, rare, prized bag of marbles, the sort that marble geeks would go crazy over – where all the information from the other alternate realms within the Cluster gets... stored, sort of. Condensed. The prime-Thor there is the _real_Thor – the one here is more like a reflection of some parts of his personality. Not all of them._

That was... hard to picture.

_The Clusters cycle based on Ragnarok. It's another Norse myth – regrettably way truer than I'd like –_

"I read up on it," Steve interrupted.

_Well, it's real. But it doesn't just affect Asgard, or any single set of Nine Realms: it's Cluster-wide. There are these beings – the Asgardians call them the Norns – they... determine the fate of the Cluster, I guess. Or maybe just all the Asgards within that Cluster – I'm not too sure, ever since you mentioned other gods... but, well, anyway. They control a lot of _something_. Loki-prime from another Cluster wanted out – in his Cluster, he was fated to die at the end of Ragnarok – so he pulled me from this one. That's when I learned this. Most of it, anyway. Some of it's still guesswork. He needed an outside agent in order to get around the Norns' power, since they had total control over all the rules _within_that Cluster._

"And?"

"He succeeded, of course," Tony said, sounding a bit annoyed. "I told you that already."

Memory came back to him with perfect clarity: looking upon Amora with Stephen's gem, and seeing her selves branch _out_ – across worlds, across realities, all connected, all luminous and powerful, the truth of a goddess' soul: beyond any human comprehension. "I meant, what are you planning to do about it?" If Tony was still planning on killing Loki – _how_? Going to each world, out of who-knew how many worlds there were in such a 'Cluster', and killing each Loki there?

_Cut off the head, and the body follows._ _If I kill the alternate Loki in the prime set of the Nine Realms in this Cluster, where his true self is located, all of him dies – and the spell he worked to destroy his original Cluster will collapse. Ragnarok unwinds, the universe rebuilds... I don't know what happens to the other pantheons over there. I'm... almost dead certain that the entire Cluster was destroyed by what he did, not just Asgard._

_That's what the pantheons here are worried about,_ Steve typed out. It had to be. A force coming from outside the universe – outside their _Cluster_of universes – one that couldn't be contained by the forces in this one –

"I think so," Tony agreed aloud. He glanced over at Steve for a long moment – his eyes off the road the entire time, of course – before adding, "Think you want to fill me in on what you left out for your report to SHIELD?"

Steve hesitated. Bringing a murderer to justice, a murderer of... Lord, who knew how many people – how many copies of the Nine Realms were there within a single Cluster? – surely, the Other Loki's victims deserved justice. But if Tony had wound up creating extremis in pursuit of that goal – extremis, or other world-breaking weapons, as he'd admitted – there was a line to be drawn. True justice did not call for innocents to be sacrificed in its name.

But this wasn't just revenge. Tony was far from the only one making preparations; an entire universe – _multiple_ universes – were on edge about an invader, readying themselves for war. If Tony had screwed up – and he _had_ – then he had done so with the best of intentions... which still didn't count for jack squat in the face of the dead, but that hadn't been entirely within Tony's control; far from it. And what mistakes he had made – in trying to do it all on his own – well, at least Tony was stretching out a hand. Steve had to reach back.

So he said, "All right," and told him, starting with how Anthony had appeared in the workshop. Parts of this he'd told Tony before, back in that other, darker world; much of it had gone into his report to SHIELD; but now he left nothing out except for what he'd been doing in the workshop in the first place. Anthony; Susan and Reed Richards; his own alternate self. The strange, other Stark Tower with its top floors missing and an even stranger structure floating in midair next to it. Rhymes and magic, chants and spells, all the advice of two different sorcerers, and the gem that had been able to see souls.

The telling took them a considerable distance into Pennsylvania, especially since he had to type out so much of it – Steve didn't think the soul gem was something that should be discussed aloud, and Tony seemed to agree. He asked detailed questions, instead, about everything from layouts to the details of the runes that Anthony had used, which Steve did his best to draw, although with the serum having been neutralized at the time his memory wasn't as clear as usual. The task of recollecting it all wasn't made any easier with the way Tony drove like an absolute lunatic, swerving through gaps in the highway traffic so narrow that Steve found himself reaching for his shield.

It was for a good cause, he reminded himself firmly.

"I hate magic," Tony sighed when Steve was done.

"It's not all evil," Steve defended.

Tony shook his head. "Not what I meant. I mean – _magic_, the idea of it, the idea it can't be understood – " there was a deep frustration beneath his words, a dark, ugly thing that Steve took careful note of. "I'm going to figure this out, how it works." He took a breath. "But first, extremis."

Steve glanced out the window, at the traffic around them. He didn't travel on highways enough – or at all, really – to know if the number of trucks and cars on the road was normal. Without air travel, were more people going cross-country by land? Or were they all staying put for fear of the nanovirus? He knew there were ongoing problems with mail delivery, but he'd had other worries, and the post situation wasn't one that he could help.

There were more than enough vehicles to make the way Tony casually wove in-between lanes absolutely hair-raising. They nearly side-swiped a semi – well, its tires – and something crunched in Steve's grip.

Tony glanced over. "I guess you wouldn't need the handle to open the door anyway."

He stuffed his hands back in his lap. The tablet might be wholly Stark-made, and therefore no doubt superior in every way to the car, but he didn't want to risk it.

The silence was awkward. All the late-night conversations they'd used to have – eventually become day-time conversations – hadn't been easy at first, but after months, they'd grown natural. But now... what was he supposed to say? While Steve had thought they'd been becoming friends, Tony had been hiding the fact that he'd been going crazy, and building secret evil lairs and death-machines. The chatter and humour made Tony seem like a bright spot of familiarity – but he was a stranger all the same.

Steve locked his hands together and brooded. The silence drew out – he'd have thought it would just become _silence_, but the minutes dragged by and it didn't get any less awkward. Probably because he still didn't have any answers to the questions that mattered the most – he wasn't certain he even knew what those questions _were_.

Trust Tony to turn his world upside down again.

"Well, this is awkward," said Tony brightly after about fifteen minutes.

"Pepper and Rhodey think you're dead, y'know." Steve felt guilt bite at him, and shoved it away – the fact that he hadn't really been planning to say that didn't mean it wasn't _true_.

"It's safer for them that way." Tony was calm, matter-of-fact. "Safer for me, too."

What – "Either one of them would _die_ for you," Steve growled. "Tony, they're your best friends!"

"And that makes this situation shitty but doesn't change it. I can't do that to them, Steve. If Natasha hadn't gotten Pepper out – well, it didn't come to that."

So it _had_ been Natasha.

"Rhodey's still in, though. And he wants to stay in. The Air Force is his life." Tony's voice dropped, going quieter. "I've dragged them both down far enough. I'd like to think I'm not such a shitty friend that I can't let go before I hit rock bottom."

"That's not how it works, Tony."

"I know. Hey, you're here, just like you asked."

"I shouldn't have had to," Steve said, exasperated.

"You didn't."

Steve blinked. Tony's grip was loose on the steering wheel – he'd returned to that same easy calm. Too easy? Maybe slightly robotic. It didn't make any sense. If Tony had been willing to come and ask for help – or at least to accept that he didn't have to do this alone – then why hadn't he done something before now? He'd had weeks.

"Tony..."

"Oh hey, look, a Burger King," said Tony, the cheer in his voice so genuine that Steve almost believed it. "I haven't been there in ages!"

A few hours later, the greasy drive-thru burgers sat heavily in Steve's stomach. He should have known it would be a mistake, he thought, suppressing a groan as he wrapped his arms around his middle. It wasn't like he was actually sick – the serum wouldn't let a bad burger get him down – but the strange chemical taste of it left him feeling like he _should_ be.

It wasn't that he wasn't used to bad food, or even highly processed food – rations during the War had been fuel, and generally only edible by accident. But at least that was a _familiar_ bad, learned over years of being poor in the Dirty Thirties. In Stark Tower he'd been spoiled – organic everything, meat of the finest quality cuts, take-out from places that wouldn't have done take-out for anyone else... he just wasn't used to the weird flavour of Fast Food America.

Or maybe the burgers really _had_ contained poison,he thought grimly, as they swerved _way too fast_ around a tight corner and his tongue recalled the uncannily alien taste of the bread.

The tiny, one-lane road they were on now wasn't even paved! They were lucky they hadn't skidded right off –

"Tada," said Tony, as they pulled around a last turn, the high-beams revealing a narrowing of the road toward a small mine entrance, now covered with chain-link to keep anyone out. Anyone like... them; Tony was not slowing down, and Steve nearly reached over and ripped the wheel from his hands – "It's an illusion, Jesus, relax."

Steve grit his teeth anyway as the entrance drew nearer: the chain-link wasn't too imposing, but even a Volvo wouldn't have fit into a tunnel that size. Passing through the image wasn't like holding onto Tony while the ICG kept them hidden; instead of all the colours becoming more _real_, everything blurred together instead, reminding him briefly of being fever-sick with extremis, when nothing he'd seen made any sense. Then they were past it, driving through a tunnel leading straight into the hillside. It went in only a short ways, but when Tony pulled to a stop and killed the engine, the place was pitch-dark. In daylight enough light might have made it through the entrance to see by, but it was now a cloudy night. Or would daylight have been enough? Would the illusion at the entrance have prevented it from coming through anyway?

There was a clicking noise, and a strange type of sound that Steve couldn't quite place, and then Tony was visible, a small circle of light coming from his right hand as he got out of the car – he'd put on a repulsor at some point, and was keeping it powered just enough to show their surroundings without actually firing a beam. It looked like the entrance to an old mine – not coal, but beyond that, Steve couldn't have said what it was anybody might have been digging for. It had clearly seen better days, though; the metal support beams were covered in grime and rust, the paint on the steel door set in concrete at the side of the small parking bay was worn almost entirely away, and the entire place had an air of... emptiness – the sort that an occupied building couldn't achieve.

Steve _thunk_ed his head back against the headrest several times.

The door was pulled open, and Tony stood there, shining his 'flashlight' into Steve's face. "Uh. You coming?"

"Get the damn light out of my face, and I will," Steve snapped, trying to keep a whining edge out of his voice. But Good Lord, what was it that drew Tony to creepy underground secret lairs? He almost opened his mouth to ask when he'd given up on things like the Helicarrier, the _Tower_ – but clicked his teeth closed in front of his tongue instead. He wasn't happy with Tony's behaviour; that didn't mean he should be cruel about it.

"Next time you build a secret evil lair, just put it in a warehouse," he said instead. "_Aboveground_."

"Mines are good for hiding radiation," said Tony, with the air of somebody trying to explain the obvious.

"What?" Tony might be immortal – and now jacked up on Extremis – but Steve didn't have the benefit of Anthony's wards anymore.

"Not the lethal sort, don't worry," said Tony cheerfully. "Come on, I'll show you."

The elevator down was too new to have been the mine's original; the dull gleam of its steel was at odds with the rust and dust everywhere else, and even aside from that it just looked more... _modern_, less rickety than the rest. He wondered if the original mine entrance they'd pulled into had been intended for cars at all – but there hadn't been any rail-lines. He could fit what he knew about mining in a thimble, though. Heck, maybe it _was_ a coal mine. He'd assumed that a coal mine would be dirtier, but that was probably a stupid assumption. No matter was being dug out, it was from a hole in the ground.

New or not, the elevator was meant for freight, and it was slow and jerky too. "I need to recalibrate this," said Tony contemplatively, as they rattled their way down. It was a _long_ way down – at least as far as the complex under Shenzhen, and although that made sense, it didn't make Steve _happy_.

"Put some lights in, too," Steve suggested, as they came to a stop and the gaps in the wire doors revealed a pitch dark hallway leading away.

"Thought you wanted me to build a new lair in a warehouse." Tony glanced ruefully at his hand as he lifted it to illuminate the hallway, showing newer reinforcing beams covering the roof, mixed with obviously older supports holding up the walls. "Lights were... less of a priority.I didn't lie when I told you I was all out of secret lairs, before – I had to build this one from scratch after I got back. Well, almost-scratch. I had to redecorate it from scratch, anyway."

Steve shook his head. The sheer _logistics_ of it... "Where'd you get the money?" He couldn't watch Tony's face while he answered; the ground was too uneven to keep walking without either paying close attention or tripping even second step.

"Markets are an easy play – seriously, people are idiots. Anybody with a brain comes along, boop, money just piles up."

"Markets are at the bottom of a pit deeper than this one."

"But still trading, which really doesn't contradict anything I just said."

Ahead of them, steel blast doors – Steve grimaced again – opened automatically, revealing yet-more darkness beyond. Tony shone his light around the room they stepped into, playing it over bulky metal boxes of computer equipment, cords _everywhere_ – and thicker power cables, a half-dozen running up the walls to each of the many reflector panels positioned overhead. It was still completely dark.

"Portal Mark Four – energy-looping, biomass stable, sized for up to four adults or eight midgets," Tony said proudly, as a humming grew all around them – things turning on by themselves... or maybe that was extremis. There were still no lights.

"You sure about where we're going?" Steve asked, unslinging his shield and running his hands nervously over the edge.

"Yep, let me – dress you up, first," Tony said, changing directions mid-sentence. The light bobbed away and Steve turned his back instead of watching it go, letting his eyes adjust until the ambient allowed him to see a clearer picture of the room than when Tony had been waving the source around, blinding. Not that it was a much better picture – it was still too dark – but it gave him a better overall view.

It was _big, _bigger even than the portal setup in Shenzhen, which had dwarfed the one he'd actually seen in action in New Orleans. The reflector panels were so densely packed that they formed a layered half-sphere at the far end of the short, stubby oval setup. Unlike both of the previous devices that Steve had seen, this one didn't have a single laser – it had five, arrayed in a precise pentagon. Had Tony borrowed that idea from magic? Behind the lasers were two enormous, bulky machines that Steve couldn't make heads or tails of, except to realize that apparently they were meant to be able to move by means of tracks along the ceiling – one to swing into place and attach to the lasers while the other moved back to stay out of the way, or vice versa. So: the portal was what Tony had said it was, but the device could also be something else...

Footsteps hurried back; Steve turned, and caught fabric as it was thrown at him, and then nearly dropped it before he could get a grip on it. It was slipperier than silk. It couldn't be silk, could it? It was way too light.

"Strip, put that on," Tony ordered imperiously. "First layer – breathes like a dream, heat and cold resistant, and yes, I included undies. Now, _this_," he brandished a pair of pants that Steve couldn't quite see, not with how Tony was holding them up with the same hand that had the light source – Steve rolled his eyes, beginning to undress, and Tony declaimed, "This makes modern body-armour weep – it's the best you're going to get short of stuffing you into a suit, which, yes, I considered for this trip. Humans are squishy, Steve. _This _is three times as impact-resistant as SHIELD's best stuff, ten times as resistant to knives – creating it was easier than trying to sew it up into a suit for you, you have no idea. If by some very remote chance somebody actually manages to make a hole in it, it has self-repairing nanites, though it could take a while. Flame resistant, acid resistant, _alkali _resistant, just generally... resistant, here."

Steve pulled the underlayer's top half over his head, trying not to marvel at the feel of it against his skin; and he'd thought the sheets in Stark Tower were opulent. This was like wearing water. He grabbed the outerlayer pants as Tony tossed them over, too, hopping on stocking feet to pull them on, and then sat down on a convenient metal box nearby, ignoring the humming machinery beneath, to pull on the boots that Tony handed over next.

"Bright red, thick grips, puncture-proof, heck, chain-saw proof, but malleable enough to climb in..." The top followed. "Blue chainmail, because actually it's not a half-bad idea, if you make it out of stuff that won't rattle and an alloy about as strong as mithril. Gloves, utility belt – "

"I'm not Batman."

"Please, Batman has even worse fashion sense than you. Full black went out of style with the nineties." Tony sniffed.

"You dyed your hair blond, you don't get to talk."

"_Ouch_. Okay, but stripped-down field medkit, emergency rations – I know how you burn through food, Steve, but go easy on these because even you could get fat off of them – "

"I thought you said this was gonna be a quick trip. Non-hostile," said Steve, standing up again to put the belt on.

Everything fit perfectly. Of course it did.

"Non-hostile except for applications of Murphy's Law, and let's face it, we have shit luck," said Tony, dark eyes gleaming in the low light. "Still, I can actually _show_ you where we're going."

Lasers began powering up, and Steve hurriedly followed Tony as he moved out of the way. His guess about the two machines behind them had been correct: one slid forward now and hooked in, Tony stepping up to force clamps down – apparently, not everything in this place ran on electricity. The way the rest of the machinery continued to do its own thing, independent of any apparent direction...

Lord. He'd thought that Tony's trick with the tablet was weird enough.

"Eyes," said Tony, handing over a pair of goggles. He didn't have any for himself, Steve noted as he put them on. They made the blue light of the laser generators turn green, casting everything in a freakish glow, as the intensity reached peak and five beams of light winked into existence, bouncing off of the reflector panels and converging to a point. A bubbling pool began to spread outward – and reflected in it was a bizarrely-coloured version of an otherwise familiar courtyard.

"Seemed like a good place to start," said Tony.

Steve nodded, staring at the image. "Probably." He tilted his head. "How'd you figure out where it was?" From the way Thor and Bruce had talked about those addresses, it couldn't be easy – it should have been near-impossible, even for somebody with Tony's brain. Apparently there were calculations large enough that even supercomputers bowed down before them.

"What, Fury didn't tell you? He got our, ah, alien friend to tell him. It's in the SHIELD database." And Tony had about as much respect for SHIELD's cybersecurity as he had for the Volvo. "Beautiful location, actually... it's weird, dimensionally speaking – it shares 3D space with us, how cool is that? It's _outside the observable universe,_ and the way it's all _connected_, good god, honestly, I don't know if I could've done it without Foster doing the groundwork. I would like to have sex with Foster's brain. We would have beautiful, beautiful ideas together."

"Tony!" Steve winced, honestly shocked – Tony didn't usually get that crass until he was trying to be shocking, at least not in Steve's presence, but there was nothing troll-ish in the dreamy look that Tony had been wearing when he'd said that. Was it the effect of being made younger by twenty years, or was it some other side-effect of being wired up like a computer? Steve sighed. "You know, you _could_ just come work with her."

"Maybe when we're done here," Tony said, the enthusiasm gone from his voice like it had never existed. Steve refused to feel bad about that. Really, he did.

The frantic hum of machinery changed again; the beams thinned, and the window in the air collapsed back into nothing as they powered down and Tony stepped forward to release the clamps. The other apparatus – it had to be the one that would make a portal – was already rotating forward. "Don't need goggles for this one," said Tony, giving a grunt as he pushed away the one and pulled the other into place. The hum began cycling up again.

"Why's it so much bigger?" Steve asked, peeling off the goggles and tossing them to the side. For all that he'd done this before... he was not a fan of having lasers shot at him, and having _five_ instead of just one didn't make it any better. He at least wanted to know _why_ there were five.

"Like I said, Maklu's in a weird location – it takes a lot of power to get there," Tony said, stepping forward. Steve joined him, suppressing a swallow. "I guess you could call it the furthest point in the marble store – actually, I'm not sure it's not right in the centre, but it starts looking like a fractal, so, distance – I haven't had time to run enough tests, though. Ready?"

He had no idea what a fractal was. "When you are."

"Here we go," said Tony, and blue light washed the world away.


	2. The White Road

Light-blindness lingered for a moment after his feet hit the ground again, but there was nothing wrong with his hearing, so Steve let his eyes recover and listened. Beside him was Tony: his breathing only barely audible – completely inaudible to any normal human – but his shifting twitchiness much louder. If there was anyone else around, they were either very good at being quiet, or a bird; there were plenty of those chirping, along with the rustle and hum of insects going about their lives. The air smelled crisp and clear, a purity that threw the memory of the Chief Magistrate's pagoda into sharp relief.

His eyes finished adjusting, and Steve took in his surroundings. They were standing on a road made from some sort of white stone – or something that looked like white stone; he couldn't see any sort of joins between stone blocks. It also wasn't made out of the same sort of stone as the mountains that surrounded them, which looked ordinary enough at first glance, but contained trees and shrubs that looked... off, somehow. Different from the ones he'd seen in Europe. The road was cut into the slopes, with more of the same white stone reinforcing the cut-away wall, and they were at an outward curve, looking over a frankly stunning view of the valley and the next mountain across, as well as the sinuous winding of the road until it vanished across a pass.

Why the hell did he always end up on roads? He should probably ask Tony. Maybe there was some magical reason for it – they were dimensional travellers, so they ended up on roads.

But at the moment, there were more pressing questions.

"_Tony_," Steve growled.

"Shit." Tony was staring out over the valley with an expression of disbelief. "What – but – the _math_ – "

That wasn't exactly the reaction Steve had been expecting, although it was uncomfortably reassuring. He needed to be _careful_ around Tony, but Tony was still his friend. Maybe he was being too uncharitable. "I've seen you screw up math before, Tony."

"Yeah, yeah, displace a decimal, it happens to the best of us after the second sleepless night – but not me. Not anymore." Tony cut himself off with a sharp downward slash of his hand, and took a deep breath. "Damn it. Maklu must have defences I couldn't pick up."

"So it... bounced us somewhere else?" Strange had mentioned not being able to access Asgard, or other divine realms. Had this been what he'd meant?

"Looks like," Tony said grimly. "Damn it! I was so sure – I can _detect_ the barriers around Asgard. They're subtle, not invisible!"

"Okay, so we get back home, and..."

Tony huffed a laugh. "Yeah, that's gonna be a problem. I was kinda counting on the makluans for that."

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn't _actually_ have a headache; he just felt like he should have one. But there was no use crying over spilt milk. "Okay. Somebody built this road. Even if they don't have a portal system – "

" – they've got the tech to build something like this, they probably have enough tech I can build it myself," Tony finished. He crouched down, scraping a fingernail over the white stone. "Huh. Looks like stone, feels like stone – isometrics say it's definitely artificial. Maybe even – _oooh,_enough tech to build an entire road out of this? Operation Go Home is a go."

"That's a terrible name for an operation," Steve informed him. He took stock of the two ways the road wound. "Getting to some sort of civilization will be the main problem. We've got food, but only one water bottle – though there might be some sort of creek along the way."

"I don't know about you, but I'm not planning on walking." Tony stood, his clothes... _shimmering?_ The question answered itself a moment later, as jeans and jacket turned metallic red and gold, and the backpack began melting too, pouring over Tony's body until he was encased head-to-toe in armour.

Okay, that was pretty impressive. "What happened to my water bottle?" Steve demanded, not sure he wanted to know the answer. The tablet, too, but he had been going to _drink_ from that!

The pout was audible in Tony's reply. _"I left it back on Earth. Jeez, you're a tough customer."_Tony shook his head – the gesture looked... _wrong_. The old Iron Man suit was a marvel, but it had gears and machinery behind it, weight that emphasized that even if it was human-sized, it packed a_lot_ more power. This, though... Tony might have still been standing there in street clothes, it moved _that_ fluidly. _"You coming?"_ He held out a hand.

Steve took a step back despite himself. "You are not carrying me all that way by the scruff of my neck." Tony had only ever done it to him that one time, but that was more than enough to know that Tony's preferred method would _not_ work for a flight any longer than a brief boost to higher ground.

_"I would not carry you around like that."_ Tony actually sounded sort of indignant about that. _"Not for any other purpose than a prank. I'll magnetize your chainmail, it'll be fine. No, no – semi-piggyback style, Rogers, you're not an infant and I need my hands free, that means I need the front of me free – "_

_All the indignities in the world'd be worth it for this view,_ Steve thought dazedly half a minute later, as they soared up toward the clouds. It was nothing like that one, brief. The Mark VIII – hastily assembled after the Mark VII had died such a glorious death so soon from its cradle – hadn't had anything like the magnetic lock Tony was using, and it had had repulsors on the back like its predecessor, anyway. But this... the view from Stark Tower was amazing; the view from the Helicarrier, stunning. This, though – this was a mountain range spread out before him, nothing beneath his feet but air, only Tony's magnetic grip on him keeping him up.

"Wow," he breathed. The frosty air nipped at his exposed face but, to Tony's credit, not at any of the rest of him. Below them the white road spread twined through the mountains like a ribbon, gleaming wherever the sun struck it, and occasionally sending off smaller offshoots to wend their ways through the mountains. One valley over, the road wrapped up to cultivated fields, with small houses dotted about them – "Tony, over there?"

_"Farmers,"_ Tony shook his head as he gave the answer over the comm. _"There's a city out in the foothills, about a twenty minute flight."_

Steve couldn't see that far – for all that they were above the mountain peaks, they were staying low, far below the spotty cloud-cover. "Then let's go."

Flying was really, _really_ fun. And this was when Tony was going slow to compensate for his un-suited passenger. Steve didn't exactly want an entire _suit_, but... maybe he could convince Tony to give him jet-boots, in the next uniform upgrade. After all, it was Tony – there _would_ be another uniform upgrade... Steve caught himself. Maybe there wouldn't. They hadn't managed to make it to Maklu after all; they were going to be returning to Earth without a cure. And Tony...

Could he let Tony just run away, if Tony tried? _Would_ Tony try? There were people back on Earth who wanted to kill _Pepper_ for the nanoplague; what would they do to Tony, if they knew he was alive? Except that in Tony's case, Steve couldn't honestly say that Tony shouldn't be paying some form of recompense.

It was enough to put a damper even on flying.

_"Back to civilization,"_ Tony said, as they zipped through the last high mountain pass and the foothills rolled away beneath them. The city Tony had mentioned was probably ten more miles out, at the end of the road, which had widened – from this distance, Steve couldn't be sure, but he thought it would probably rival a modern freeway. The city, though, didn't look modern at _all_, except for its sprawling size: there were some tall buildings, but they were just overall large, not sky-scraping towers. And it was surrounded with concentric rings of stone walls. Even if it was made of the same white rock as the road, modern cities didn't bother with walls like that. At least the architecture was reminiscent of the short look that he'd had at Maklu: maybe they weren't too far off.

Maybe they _could_ find a cure here... he squinted, despite knowing it wouldn't actually help. By the time they'd gotten to a mile out, he was pretty sure that even the wall frescos were much the same.

_"...maybe this_is_Maklu_," Tony said, not quite echoing Steve's thoughts. _"Slight calibration error? Quasar dipped at the wrong moment, bent space-time a bit in an odd direction? Hmm – woah!"_

They dropped, Steve's stomach lurching up into his throat as Tony stopped playing nice for his guest and turned on some _real_ acceleration. The world flipped end over end as Tony took evasive manoeuvres – revealing scales, bright red in sunlight, and another form – long and sinuous and blue – dropping out of the clouds behind the first makluan. The ground drew terrifyingly close, and then they were _stopping_, with enough G-forces that Steve didn't manage to land on his feet when Tony suddenly cut the magnetic lock. He rolled, soft dirt further padding the impact, and came up, shield in hand, just in time to watch Tony rocket upward between the two alien dragons. One breathed fire at him – a thousand-foot long jet of green.

_"Sorry, Steve, can't really fight with you hanging on."_

Steve swore. Trapped on the ground, and there was no way up there – _damnit!_ Thor and the Chief Magistrate had claimed that makluans were peaceful, but apparently Fin Fang Foom wasn't the only one of his people with tendencies toward destruction and mayhem.

_Think_ – what did he have on his side? The city they'd been approaching was maybe a mile away now, the road crossing at an angle between him and it – he started running toward it. Possibly not the best idea, but between action and sitting on his hands, he'd take action any day. There might be someone there who knew what was going on and could put a stop to it – or, failing that, they might have another way into the air.

A bellow like thunder split the air, and Steve glanced up, catching snapshots of the fight as he ran. One of the dragons was thrashing in midair, its eyes no longer glowing but now blackened and burnt. _Oh, nasty shot, Tony._The other makluan had coiled about beneath its wounded comrade, a position of wary support – and then three more of the dragons rose from the city ahead of Steve, snaking through the air to join the fight. One of them, a forest-green fellow, was at least twice as long as either of the first two – and _fast_, shooting ahead of the others and blasting out a broad jet of blue-white fire that completely encompassed Tony.

"Tony? _Tony!"_

_"Busy!"_ His voice was so terse Steve couldn't tell if Tony was just distracted, or something worse. At least he was alive.

Steve ran faster, and prayed. His next stolen glimpse of the fight showed no Tony – no Tony – and then there he was, a tiny figure in now-black armour, corkscrewing about the giant serpent and attacking with a bright blue laser shooting out of one wrist. It didn't cut the makluan to shreds as easily as Tony had cut the engine apart on the Helicarrier, but it made the beast give out one of those thunderous roars of pain, loud and close– the fight had moved almost right over Steve's head. But yet more dragons were rising from the city – along with smaller fliers, now, riding chariots or flying under their own power.

He hit the last stretch, a half-mile sprint to the city gates – now opening and pouring forth with land troops. Apparently he hadn't been as forgotten as he'd thought. Riders were first, armoured foes on six-legged not-horses – three legs abreast, and with four of the beasts lined up side-by-side they made a nightmare of galloping hooves, alien and strange. But _his_ nightmares weren't about the things in the dark that might come for him. These were enemies, attacking without warning or provocation; gear, manner, and movement told him in an instant that they were clearly professional soldiers. He wouldn't be hurting innocents; no one was going to die here who hadn't signed up willing.

A pair of thunderous roars accompanied more fire lighting up the sky, but he was closing fast on his own targets, now. The two riders in the middle had lances, but the other two had swords. Steve considered angles in his head, skidded to a halt, and planted his feet. Masked helmets stared down at him, drawing closer, closer –

He dove left, shield trailing on his arm, lashing out and around to take out the left-most beast's closest back leg. It screamed, but didn't go down; six legs could be an advantage. The jarring impact numbed his arm briefly, but after two months of fighting zombies and nearly a year of training with SHIELD, he was in better fighting shape than he had been during the War; he pivoted, knowing that the riders were already wheeling their mounts around, ready to come up behind him and catch him between them and the second set arriving – now.

This time, he jumped _up_, clearing the slashing swords and twisting in mid-air, reaching out to grab onto the middle rider rushing by... who apparently wasn't as firmly in his saddle as Steve had thought, because instead of landing on the back of the steed like he'd planned, both he and his hand-hold kept their own momentum and landed back on the hard surface of the road, the rider getting a knee to the gut more by accident than planning.

Two waves of cavalry vs. a lone infantry man was either overkill or shit tactics, depending on the infantry in question – but now there were enemy infantry coming up, pike-men covering archers further behind. Steve brushed aside arrows, not even bothering to hide behind his shield; they were slow enough he could block them as they came. Why didn't these people have _guns?_

He wrested one pike away from its bearer and used it to knock a half-dozen of them flat, then threw his shield and ducked into a roll to avoid the hail of arrows, even though he didn't need to –

A sudden sense of pressure, and an arrow flying away half-broken, made him rapidly rethink that assumption. Right, aliens. A dragon had been able to take down a fighter-jet; why _wouldn't_ these people have ultra-sharp arrows that could cut through even Tony's armour? The arrow hadn't managed to slice much through the outer layer before it had broken, but they had a _lot_ of arrows – Steve ducked behind a pair of pike-bearers, mentally cursing. The archers were damn near frightening in their precision – in firing into general melee, they hadn't yet hit a single one of their own people. Two more shots grazed him, but there was no time to check if Tony's suit had lived up to its billing; his shield arced back, and the melee closed again. These guys might have been fighting with archaic weaponry and tactics, but they pulled it off well, engaging him on as many sides as they could fit people with room still to move. He wished he'd asked Tony for a gun; he wouldn't pick one over his shield, but he needed a secondary weapon right now.

_"Shit,"_ said Tony in his ear, voice breathless. _"These guys just keep _coming_. They've got some serious –_ack_– firepower – "_

He'd take Tony's word for it; though why they were restricting themselves so heavily down here, he didn't know. He didn't think he'd killed anybody, yet, but a fight was a fight – he swatted an arrow, decapitated a pike, and kicked a sword out of a rider's hand, crushing the guy's fingers as he did so. "What – " dodge; his boot skidded on something on the white stone, and he nearly went down, which was the last thing he wanted to do while surrounded; he turned it into a flying back-kick instead – "the _hell_ – " his fingers dug into an armoured wrist, and the armour lost – it wasn't metal, but some sort of leather instead – a sword dropped from nerveless fingers, and Steve kicked it up into his now-free hand – "is your – " he hamstrung two enemies in neat succession with the sword, bashed a third over the head with his shield – "_problem?"_

He must have missed a signal, because they backed off in concert, forming into a tight circle (but _wide_ – there were way too many of them for Steve's taste) instead. It was broken as one of the riders who had managed to avoid getting knocked off his sorta-horse pulled up at the outer ring and shouldered his way through. _Not_ one of the first few riders, Steve realized a moment later; this guy's armour was much more heavily ornate than theirs had been, to the point of being non-functional for combat. Were looks deceiving, the guy an idiot, or was this a truce?

"You ask this of us?" _she_ demanded, in a voice that was definitely female. "Do you then bow to our superiority?"

"I don't bow to anyone, but I'd like to resolve this without fighting." _Further_ fighting. Above them, Tony's battle continued.

_"I'll bow, if it'd make them stop shooting firegoddamnit,"_ Tony put in grimly, his voice rising frantically at the end, and okay, maybe Steve would be bowing. Damn it.

"You are willful trespassers, who have attacked the loyal guardians of this city without warning, and grievously injured several," the rider replied, her voice stern. "There can be no other resolution other than your submission to justice; and we shall fight you up and down the mountains until you cry surrender."

_"What,_we _attacked – "_ Tony was protesting indignantly in his ear.

Steve ignored him, because he wasn't saying anything that Steve wasn't already thinking. "Ma'am, your guards attacked us first – we weren't doing anything!"

"Precisely! You declared not your names, nor your intentions, nor the origin of your passports; and it is right and meet that all in these lands shall do so. Of that crime you are charged, and must be tried and if found guilty sentenced by our magistrates. Will you submit, or must we grind you into the earth and drag you forth in chains?"

Steve looked up, craning his head. The noise of the battle had stopped, but there were at least ten of the makluans still up there, circling in a sphere around a tiny black figure, the sinuous movements of their bodies making it difficult to count their true numbers at a glance. But there were _way_ more than ten of their smaller allies.

_"Despite ignorance of the law typically not being accepted as a valid excuse – believe me, I've tried – I'd have to say go with 'em on this one, Steve,"_Tony advised. He still sounded winded – how many hits had he taken? _"If nothing else because it'll be easier to hide out in a city than out here."_

"Yeah, I thought of that," Steve muttered, and dropped his stolen sword. "Alright, fine. We surrender."

* * *

Prison kinda sucked.

It wasn't that Steve hadn't seen worse. Granted, in the War he was always the guy breaking people _out_ of prisons; up until he'd handed himself over to Schmidtt at the end, he'd managed to avoid getting captured. For a first time on the opposite side of the bars, though, he knew it wasn't that bad: they'd been allowed to keep their gear, and they hadn't even been searched – which, considering the arsenal that Tony carried around, seemed really foolish. But it didn't change the fact that they were in a dungeon, complete with straw strewn across the floor. It looked like clean straw. Steve _hoped_ it was clean straw, more for Tony's peace of mind than his own. Tony was currently standing near to the door, having adamantly refused to even consider sitting down like Steve was doing, and had spent the entire time since they'd arrived here volubly contemplating the hygienic drawbacks of having armour that functioned something like a second skin. At least the armour was no longer totally blackened and charred; the damage done by the dragonfire had been repairing itself steadily. Its slow but noticeable progress was strangely fascinating.

" – I swear to god, I am going to boil every last inch. Antibacterial soap – Jesus, does that stuff even work on extraterrestrial bacteria? I'm sure Bruce would have a field day, but there is no way in hell that I'm – "

There was a pair of guards standing at the entrance of the dungeon, beside the wide stone stairs leading up. The stairs were more of that strange white not-stone, just like their cell, although the walls in here were much... grimier. The guards had been doing a good job of staying like statues for most of Tony's rant. But mercifully, one of the guards must have finally had enough, because he strode forward, planted his strange spear-staff on the ground, and ordered in exasperation, "Hold your tongue, and be silent! You offend the ear of every prisoner and guard within this place with your moaning complaints!"

Steve tilted his head, comparing his words to the way the captain had spoken earlier. It was sort of reminiscent of the way Thor spoke, or the... people... he'd met in the Infinite Embassy; maybe it was something to do with the Allspeech? They couldn't possibly be speaking English by accident.

"Oh, right, I should just shut up and be a happy prisoner," Tony sneered. "Who cares that we've been interred in a filth-infested rat-house for no good cause? Nah, you've got visitors from another realm, it's best to just shoot _fire_ at them and then claim it's their fault. I guess it's one way of getting out of paying were-gild, though it sure explains why you owe a lot of it."

Steve rose to his feet, though he stayed away from the bars. What was Tony doing? Well, it was pretty obvious _what_ he was doing – Steve just wasn't sure that it wouldn't make the situation worse. During the short trip here they'd both protested about being delegates from Earth (and this was why they should have sent _actual_ diplomats, Steve thought moodily), and wanting to speak to somebody in charge, but their captor had dismissed Earth with an unimpressed wave of her hand and told them that their hearing would come soon enough. And then they'd been thrown in the dungeon. Generally, antagonizing your captors once you were already in the dungeon was supposed to be a bad idea, at least if you were dumb enough to _still_ be hoping they might cooperate.

"Were-gild? What is this charge?"

"Déhuá..." the guard's partner said, her voice warning.

"If they are owed honourable debts, then these must be fulfilled," Dehua said firmly. "I shall go inquire."

"First fetch another to take your place," the other sighed, leaning on her staff-spear – Steve wasn't sure what exactly felt so wrong about those weapons, but he wasn't going to give them a name until he knew. Déhua nodded briskly and left, his sandaled feet making only the quietest of rasps against the stone.

Huh. Tony's goading had actually worked.

_"Not bad, hey?"_ Tony said smugly. Or... _sent_ smugly; Steve heard it clearly through the radio, but Tony had the faceplate retracted and Steve could _see_ that his lips hadn't moved. _Hivemind_, Tony had said, and _wireless signals_.

_I guess that's how all the zombies know to swarm_. Right. That was a pleasant thought.

"If you were bringing news of honourable debts to be paid, then you should have approached honourably," the remaining guard informed them, sounding deeply unimpressed. "You should be ashamed."

"We _did_ approach honourably," Tony sighed.

Steve stepped forward, holding up a hand. "We're not from your world. We didn't know of your customs."

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse," the guard said firmly, and Steve had to suppress an eye-roll at the sight of Tony mouthing the latter half of the phrase in sync with her. "You are poor representatives to not know this. By rash impetuosity you have endangered the repayment of debts and the fulfilment of promises made. A criminal cannot make representation before the king. This will cause the reparations to be greatly delayed, and throw the order of the court into turmoil for many years." She shook her head. "You should be very ashamed."

_"O-kay,"_ said Tony slowly, soundlessly, _"These people are strange."_

They were on another world. Gods looked human – on the surface. How was Steve still surprised that these people's logic seemed based on a different set of values? But he was.

Dehua returned shortly, followed by two more guards. "The judge has agreed to expedite your case," he reported solemnly, as he stepped forward and unhooked a set of archaic keys from his belt, fitting one into the lock. A burst of light belied technology beneath, though, and Steve frowned. They had dungeons, magic-like-tech keys, flying chariots, dragons, bows and arrows – it had to be enough to let Tony build them a way home, right?

"This way," Dehua commanded, leading them while his partner brought up the rear. Steve caught Tony's eye and nodded acknowledgement –_good work_.

They were led out, down a confusing maze of hallways – Steve had to keep track in his head by memory and direction alone; the white walls all looked the same – and into a courtyard of colours that seemed extra-vibrant after all the stark, undecorated stone. Upon a raised dais sat a chair that looked incongruously delicate next to all the stone – although it did fit in with the paper roof – and which was occupied by the man who was presumably their judge; everyone else in the room looked content to stand.

The judge – a short man with an unlined face, despite possessing an entirely grey head of hair – peered down at them from his seat. "Hmph. These are the accused? Let the clerk read out their crimes."

A young woman with a scroll stepped forward, and read, "On this day, these two men, who claim as their names Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, trespassed wilfully into the lands of this kingdom. In this act they assaulted many of our guard, resulting in one death, four maimings, and other lesser injuries."

Steve winced, and saw Tony's eyes twitch slightly – a suppression of the same.

"Trespass, hmm? Let the accused present their passports for examination by this court."

What? Steve glanced to Tony, startled. Of all the – he _had_ a passport, but he hadn't thought it would be any use on an interplanetary trip!

"Uh, right," said Tony, looking just as surprised. "Passports. Right, I – have..." he thumbed a panel on the chest of the armour, and it opened enough for him to pull out two small bound booklets: passports.

When had he – well, it wasn't as though Tony had much respect for other people's security. Though at least one of those had to be a forgery; Tony was legally _dead_. Unless he'd – he'd pulled them from a panel _in his armour_, Steve realized, but it was too late to say anything; the clerk had already taken them and handed them over to the judge, who flicked through the first, then the second, and then sniffed them both.

Then set them to the side and leaned forward, frowning sternly at them both. "Lying to a judge? This is terrible behaviour. You have been granted the favour of an expedited hearing, and now you present false evidence?" He picked up the passports again and rapped them against the side of his chair; they both dissolved into metallic ash. Steve had guessed right – it _was _extremis. "Let the court records reflect the addition of one count of perjury to the charges."

They were going to a city to ask these people for help with extremis, and Tony tried to _trick_ them with it? Or – okay, maybe the armour was something separate, but they were asking these people for help _with technology that Tony couldn't understand_ –

Good Lord, for a genius Tony could be really dumb sometimes.

"I'm sorry," Steve apologized, hands up, before Tony could say anything that might make the situation worse. How the hell was it that he managed to manipulate the situation so well in with the guard, and now he'd just _blown_ it? Maybe because the one time he'd been telling the truth, even if it was as obnoxiously as possible... "Look, my friend's an idiot and I need to keep him on a leash, but our mission is real – and so's our claim. We've got people dying because of a plague unleashed by one of _your_ people, a criminal you guys kicked out, and Th – an ally of ours from another world told us we could get were-gild for it. What we need is a _cure_."

The judge regarded him sternly. "That is a matter to be dealt with by the king, and the king cannot deal with criminals. Therefore you must be found innocent, or found guilty and fulfill the sentence, before you may see him. Now, have you any true passports, or shall we note you have none and proceed?"

"We have passports," said Steve. "But they're at home. We didn't know we needed them."

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse," said the judge. "Let the court records reflect the addition of two counts of unlawful trespass to the charges, and that the accused plead guilty to the counts of unlawful trespass."

How had he managed to make things _worse?_ "But you're already charging us with trespassing. You can't just charge us twice for the same thing."

"You were arrested for _wilful_ trespass; but even then you might have carried lawful documentation," the judge explained – patiently, but no less sternly. Oh, no. Here was somebody who really loved the fine print of detailed law. "But as you have admitted you have no passports, then you can have no lawful reason to be within this territory."

"What, not even if we're from this territory?" asked Tony. "And by the way, I totally have a passport – I did _not_ plead guilty, thanks."

"It's a fake. Your actions plead for you. And if you had been of this territory, then you would not have crossed into it." The judge actually looked sorrowful. "Your ruler chose poor delegates; but perhaps you were all that could be spared in the face of the plague. Nonetheless, the great wheels of civilization cannot allow a rough pebble to alter their course, or a great many more calamities shall result. We shall move to the pleas. Against one count of wilful trespass each, and one count of perjury for you," this was directed to Tony, "how do you plead?"

"Not guilty, on Steve's behalf. I flew him over, there was no act of will on his part involved," Tony said promptly. "Seriously, I had him mag-locked to my armour, it wasn't like he was going to get away. And he didn't know about the forgery either, that's my bad."

"Tony," Steve said, and then cut himself off. Okay, so this had... potential, actually. If it let one of them reach the king – he didn't like Tony leaving himself dangling like bait, though. They'd killed somebody on the way in – in self-defence, but these people worked by different rules, or they wouldn't have been fighting for their lives at all.

_"Trust me, Steve, I'll be fine. And we need that cure."_

"Shut up, Tony," Steve said, as quietly as he could, because if these people had build extremis and could blast a bit of Tony's nanomachines to dust, then what else could they do – or overhear?

"Do you dispute this plea?" the judge asked Steve.

"I – no, I guess I plead not guilty," Steve said reluctantly.

"Then, Tony Stark, I find you guilty of one count of perjury, one count of unlawful trespass, and one count of wilful trespass. The question now remains as to the guilt of Steve Rogers. Let Tony Stark be removed from the place of the accused."

For a brief, horrible moment Steve wondered if they were going to be split up – as if it wasn't bad enough that they were already alone and on trial in an alien city – but instead Dehua just escorted him to the side of the courtroom, to stand with several other guards – some sporting injuries – and after a moment he realized that they were the witnesses for the case.

He really wished they'd brought along a lawyer. Hell, he wished they'd brought along a proper _diplomat_. Who had training in law. This was insane.

"The claim is made that Steve Rogers did not commit trespass of his own will, but was transported within our territory by another, and could not have reasonably prevented such an act," said the judge. "This claim has been made by Tony Stark. Are there any other witnesses to the event who could shed light on such a matter?"

"Do I count?" Steve asked, immediately regretting it. After all the times his smart mouth had gotten him in trouble with Phillips, how had he not yet _learned_ –

But the judge regarded him with no more sternness than he had previously shown – though, that was quite enough to start. "No. You have already pled not guilty."

The clerk stepped forward, a slate in her hand, along with something that looked more like a paintbrush than a pen. "Honourable judge, the guard that witnessed the act of trespass itself was the one slain."

"Then let him be brought forth to present testimony."

The judge must have misheard. Either that, or _Steve_ had misheard.

"Honourable judge, he was a dragon in this life, and so newly dead that he could not possibly be called upon by any lesser sage than the Great Sage Soen."

"Then let the presence of the Great Sage be requested, that the wheels of civilization may swiftly be returned to their tracks," said the judge irritably, and the clerk bowed low and left.

And then they waited.

_Everybody_ waited. For all that the judge seemed to be in a hurry, he apparently didn't care to do anything else in the meantime. They waited, and they all stayed standing except for the judge. Nobody spoke. The judge might have been meditating – or napping. His eyes were closed.

_"Hmm."_

Steve glanced over to where Tony was standing with the other witnesses. He... also looked like he was napping, standing up in the armour. Steve raised an eyebrow – _What?_

_"I'm not finding any traces of tech that's like extremis, Steve. The trick that he did with melting the nanites – which I'm going to have to replace,"_Tony sounded indignant about this, which was a bit rich considering he'd been trying to lie to a judge, _" – it's not nanite-targeted, it's the _metal _it goes after... I think I need to make some modifications. I think I can use a sort of destructive interference to stop it."_

Steve felt his eyes widen, and he nodded – small, but emphatic. If they could rip apart Tony's armour that easily – well, it brought to mind the question of why _hadn't_ they, when it would have brought Tony down in an instant? And falling from that height...

Tony was immortal, he recalled belatedly. It was easy to forget – maybe because it didn't feel real. Not after the number of times Tony had gone missing. And he could be hurt – falling from that height... and Tony had said he had been dying when he took extremis.

Tony needed to give some better answers, Steve decided darkly. The latter half of their road trip had been awkward small-talk, written explanations of tech that Steve had no hope of understanding, and a short video tour of an alternate-reality Asgard. Nothing of real use.

"You're not concerned about them raising the dead?" he muttered, as quietly as he could; in the quiet calm of the courtyard it still sounded way too loud to his ears. But nobody hushed him, or even shot him a glare – nobody looked at him at all. Maybe they hadn't heard him. Maybe they were ignoring him. He couldn't tell.

_"Sure, but I have to wait until they get back with their sage, don't I?"_

Of course he didn't care. "You think it's possible? I thought you were an atheist." An atheist... it didn't mean the same thing as it had when Steve had been growing up. Gods walked the world in the twenty-first century; Steve had met them, and seen just how much they weren't _God_.

_You shoulda talked to a priest before now, Rogers._

He knew he should have. The impossible reaches of the Infinite Embassy... what happened to _souls?_ If the Chief Magistrate believed in God, then so could he – no matter the fissure of shame in his soul over needing _evidence;_ he wasn't Job. He just had to accept his own failings. But he still wondered... where did souls _go_, after death? Were they abandoned to those cruel lesser gods, so full of fault and human error?

_"I am an atheist. I don't get why you worship a god – no, okay, I do. I just... don't agree with those reasons, but since I happen to want to avoid pissing you off when I've already fucked up today, and it's not a hill worth dying on – I think they're stupid reasons, okay? But they're yours. I get that."_

"Gee, thanks." It didn't explain anything.

_"I've talked to the dead before."_It was too casual. He wasn't lying – but the tone, itself, that was a lie – what did that mean?

"Where?"

_"In Hell. Plenty of dead people there. H- uh, she-who-sounds-like-her-realm herself qualifies, you know?"_

_Hell?_ Merciful God, Tony had been in _Hell_ at some point? And Steve did believe in a merciful God – in a higher purpose –

Something of his thoughts must have shown on Steve's face, because Tony's answer wasn't in any way glib. _"It was where I first wound up when I – fell. I can't – we can't _talk _about this, Steve. I don't know if it counts if there's _any _sort of auditory component, or strictly verbal, but I can't take that chance."_

"You are not avoiding this," Steve said, and this time it was closer to a growl than a mutter, deep in his throat.

_"No, but it's not exactly the best time."_ There was a single, half-strangled thread in Tony's voice that hinted that he might have been affected by – _God_– spending an amount of time in Hell, but it was mostly drowned out by exasperation and – truth. This wasn't the time. Tony needed to work on his 'modifications'; and they both needed to avoid a prison sentence, or whatever the punishment for their crime was. It was hopeful that they hadn't been charged with anything _worse_ than trespassing, despite the death of the guard – that must have been the first dragon that Tony had taken out – but these people... something was just _off_. And that wasn't even considering that they were apparently about to summon up a soul to present evidence.

Maybe it would just be charlatanism, but... he _hoped_ it was charlatanism. Did he?

_Running away from answers? Not your style, Rogers_. The voice in his head sounded far too much like Tony – the Tony he thought he'd known, the one who'd been crazy all along. The one who had walked through Hell and somehow come out the other side.

"Uh, excuse me?" he asked a nearby guard – not Dehua, unfortunately; Dehua was standing in the witnesses' section. Possibly guarding Tony; it was hard to tell. The guard he'd spoken to, on the other hand, looked rather embarrassed to be addressed – was he not supposed to be speaking to anyone? Well, the judge didn't object, and nobody was trying to arrest him some more, so he'd just have to press on. "Can you please tell me what the sentences are gonna be for Tony?"

The guard frowned harder at him, not quite looking at him, as though she wasn't supposed to be seeing him. Just like... everyone else ignoring him. Too bad for them. "Such a question is fit only for your judge to answer."

And here he'd been trying not to make a scene. Steve cleared his throat. The clerk's address had been – "Honourable judge, can you tell us what the sentence is going to be for Tony?"

The judge opened his eyes, no hint of confusion on his features – so, meditating, then, or he came out of sleep combat-ready... except as a judge. Or maybe it was something else. These people looked human – but so did most of the other gods and aliens Steve had met. That didn't mean they _were_. "The sentence may not be pronounced until the veracity of all charges has been determined."

"Okay, but you finished trying him, it's just me now."

"Yeah, I'd like to know the answer to this one, too," Tony chimed in from the sidelines.

The judge frowned at the both of them. "You committed your crimes together; thus you are judged together. Do all people from your realm behave so grossly? You have committed crimes and been granted expediency, at the cost of our own citizenry; yet your manners are base and rude, and you overall abuse our lenience."

Well. Okay.

Steve shut up.

The Great Sage, Soen, arrived ten minutes later in cloud of perfume and a swirl of robes – or was it a dress? Steve really couldn't tell. It looked like _some_ sort of traditional clothing, though. Her hair was ornately styled, its dark masses piled atop her head and affixed with a multitude of jewelled pins. Two young girls trailed behind her, their hands hidden in their sleeves in a way that made them look more timid than mice.

"Great Sage, we are honoured with your presence," the judge said, rising for the first time and bowing, which apparently was the cue for the rest of the court to also bow: Steve and Tony were the only two who didn't, although nobody tried to _make_ them bow, either. Soen bowed back to the judge, but not as deeply. "The trial of this man depends upon testimony from a witness but recently deceased, and of such former power that he might only be raised by one as enlightened as your overreaching glory."

Soen turned to regard Steve with dark, empty eyes. He tensed.

"What was the name of the deceased?" Soen asked the clerk, while giving a small, sharp gesture to the girls behind her. From apparently nowhere – Steve supposed it could have been up their sleeves, but he somehow doubted it – they began pulling flower petals, which they scattered upon the floor; if there was a pattern, it wasn't one he could pick out.

"The accused was named – " what the clerk said next made Steve's throat hurt just listening to it, and he had to sharply remind himself of where they were. Different world, and the people here were _definitely _not human.

_"Ow,"_ commented Tony's voice in his ear.

"Very well." Soen pulled a bag out from one of her own sleeves – and to be fair, they were voluminous enough to make it plausible; he wasn't sure how she _moved_ in that dress. She upended the bag in the middle of the scattered petals, dumping a pile of white powder onto the courtyard floor. A lot of it drifted into the air, and Steve sniffed – salt? Maybe, but there was other stuff in there, and it was more finely powdered than any table salt. Soen clapped her hands together and bowed her head, and they – waited.

And waited.

She seemed less... present, after a minute. Like she had when she'd turned that gaze upon him – but it wasn't just her eyes, it was... all of her.

The small pile of salt was stirring; the traces of powder remaining in the air were pulled to it, but it was... _growing_. Growing really _big_, abruptly, until it exploded upward, somehow not managing to take off the roof in the process – Steve wasn't sure how, because he was looking straight at a dragon made of salt, and there was no way that the thing could actually fit inside the building except for how it somehow did. Colour spread upward from the petals scattered on the floor, until the dragon coiled above them all, apparently completely alive again.

"Noble guard – " the judge's voice did that same thing that the clerk's had, "of the honourably slain, you are commanded to testify as to the events of your slaying."

"So I am commanded," said the dragon – but it said it in only one voice, one tone, not the choir that was the Chief Magistrate's voice. And Fin Fang Foom had been the same as her; Thor had even explained how their speech worked. Was this dragon _not_ a makluan? Or was it because its body was made out of flower petals and salt?

"Did you witness this man cross over our borders?"

"Yes," said the dragon.

"Did he cross of his own free will, or was he forced over by another?"

"I could not tell," said the dragon. "He was carried by another man, but they appeared to be bound together. His hands were free, and he did not struggle, but when placed upon the ground he did not fly of his own power; I do not know if he could."

"Would the fall have been quite far?"

"Very far, and I think it should have mortally injured any of his stature had his companion not flown down close to the ground before dropping him."

"Very well, your testimony is concluded," said the judge, and the dragon collapsed into a rain of salt that vanished before it could hit the ground. The small girls were already crouched down about Soen, picking up the petals and making them vanish back to wherever they'd come from.

Where had the _dragon_ come from? Steve stared at where the pile of salt had been and licked numb lips. It had formed a body – did that mean that its corpse was gone? He needed to stop thinking of it – he – she? – the dragon could talk, it could reason... with a voice that deep he sounded like a he. He wasn't an it, no more than JARVIS had been.

He still needed to ask about JARVIS – _properly_ ask, about why Tony _had_ copies of him if he wasn't willing to activate them. Hours in the car and yet it felt like Steve hadn't had any time with his friend. Tony was a phantom, just like the dragon – dragged back from the dead, from someplace _beyond,_ and Steve wasn't sure that he wouldn't crumble back into salt, too. Where did souls of the dead go? Gods walked the universe – did they claim their share? It was unfair to consider that they did, considering how cruel some religions could be, including the one he'd been raised in; it was unfair to consider that they didn't, because faith had its own value and if that was what people _wanted_ – Tony was an atheist, where would he go? Where had he gone?

_Mother of God, Rogers, get a grip._ He glanced down at his hands. They weren't shaking.

"We have then that the accused could have crossed of his own free will, or could have been carried despite it," said the judge, not missing a beat. "The impartial witness did not see enough to sway; the accused cries innocence; the only fact is that he did indeed cross the border. How then to determine the honesty of a witness partial to his own cause? This is a rare situation."

"I've always been partial to 'innocent until proven guilty'," said Tony from the sidelines. Steve shot him a grateful look, and mentally shook himself. Later. _Later_.

_It's always later._

_...yeah, because you're busy_now_. Focus, damn it, if you want there to_be_a later._

"That is entirely backwards," the judge replied. "I am not surprised at your manners, if your people cannot even grasp simple logic! The fact of guilt or innocence is not determined by a judge's ruling; it is the ruling that must reflect the fact."

"If the events of one situation cannot be impartially determined," said Soen, turning her empty gaze upon Steve again, "then it must become a trial of his character. If he is a virtuous man, then he would speak but virtuous words in court; and if he is less than that, then his honesty may be judged by the strength of his dedication to his cause."

"This court bows to your wisdom, Great Sage," the judge said, standing so that he could suit actions to words; and once again everyone else bowed with him. Resuming his seat, he fixed Steve with a sharp gaze. "Then how shall we judge the virtue of this man before us? Has he achieved the emptiness of the sky? The tranquility of the pond? The steadfastness of the mountain? We must determine a test for each of these things."

"In the tradition taught to me by Her Blessed Holiness Yangchen," said Soen, "and which I teach to my disciples, one who has achieved these things may meditate for nine days and nine nights, and the breezy air shall grow still, the silver fish shall make no ripple in the pond, and no blade may cut his skin, for the strength of stone is within him."

Well, that killed that idea.

"Great Sage," Steve said, "I'm a soldier – um, a warrior." He wasn't a soldier – not anymore. He wasn't even an agent of SHIELD – he was just a contractor, technically a civilian. But he thought that they might not take 'part-time spy' very well, and it wasn't like he actually did any spying. "I'm not _that_ virtuous. You'll have to judge me by my cause."

"If you are sure, then you had better describe your cause."

"One of your people caused a plague in our realm," said Steve. "We were told by an ally that we could claim a debt from you for it – what we want is a cure."

"Ah," said Soen. "And you are _very_ sure you do not wish to claim pure virtue?"

Well, not anymore... "Yes."

"Then I am afraid your guilt is clear." She turned to the judge. "His cause is virtuous, and his dedication profound. A man who is virtuous may follow a virtuous cause and be beset by hardship without straying from the path; but a man who is not virtuous, presented with no other path into the city, would surely fall into temptation, reason that the lesser of two evils shall suffice and thus allow himself to oppose the rule of law and be corrupted."

"Or I could – " the problem with trying to protest her logic, aside from the vague... _weirdness_ of it – was that no matter how she got there, she was right anyway – by the standards of these people, he was guilty of the crime they'd accused him and Tony of. Of course, if these people had any sort of _signs_ that might have given them a clue to keep out... "That's not what – "

"We prostrate ourselves before your intellect," said the judge, and stood – then knelt – to suit actions to words; and once again the entire court copied him. When he had resumed his seat, he nodded to the clerk, who stood ready with a brush freshly dipped in ink. "Let the records reflect that Steve Rogers is found guilty of one count of wilful trespass, and one count of unlawful trespass."

He gestured, and apparently this was the cue for Dehua to subtly shoo Tony back into the center of the courtyard with Steve – Tony, who didn't look like he'd been paying any attention at _all_ to what had just happened.

"Are you even listening?" Steve asked in a hissed whisper.

_"Kinda busy programming, Steve. And machining... programming machining..."_

"For the crime of perjury, the punishment is a fine of three thousand slates. For the crime of unlawful trespass, the punishment is manual labour within the palace, to wash the floors from sunset to midnight until six thousand dawns have passed. For the crime of wilful trespass, the punishment is manual labour within the palace, to clean the windows from midnight to sunrise until nine thousand dawns have passed."

The scribe's brush flickered quickly over the court record, keeping pace with the judge's words; and when he had finished, the clerk set aside the brush and stepped toward them expectantly.

"Um," said Steve. Tony didn't say anything. His eyes were half-closed; he looked like he was falling asleep on his feet.

"The fine is to be paid immediately," the judge informed them, with an air of long-suffering at being forced to deal with such idiots.

"The fine of three thousand... slates?" What was _that_ supposed to mean? He couldn't possibly mean something like a chalkboard, could he?

"Yes," said the judge.

"What's a slate?"

The judge stared at them; the silence in the courtyard grew more intense. By the time the judge broke it again, Steve felt like he could have swum through it. "Do you not have such currency upon you?"

"I have a black AmEx and a debit card, they tend to cover everything I need," Tony mumbled without opening his eyes any further.

"Program faster," Steve muttered under his breath. How long was nine thousand dawns? Had to be way more than a couple of years – and here he'd thought nine days and nine nights of meditation was bad. Apparently, that was just a warm-up. "I don't think we have any slates, unless you can show us an example."

"If you need an example then you surely do not have any," the judge agreed. "Very well; then I charge you each with one count of contempt for this lawful court acting in the name of the king; and as you have confessed you shall not pay the fine, then I must find you immediately guilty. For the crime of contempt of this lawful court, the punishment is death by beheading, to be carried out by sunset upon this day." He eyed them both. "The punishments for your other crimes shall have to wait until you have served your time in the underworld and returned to life. And as criminals cannot appear before the king, your petition shall also have to wait, and dishonour the both of you in the waiting; you have failed your lords. Let this be a lesson to you not to grab greedily at responsibilities meant for your betters."

Killing somebody – didn't even get them charged. But not having the money to pay a court fine got them _beheading_?

These people were crazy!

"A king may always listen to a Great Sage, however," said Soen, while Steve was still trying to formulate some sort of reply. "Though the sage might often rue how little the king learns in the process. I shall investigate this matter of the plague, that the dishonour brought by these two criminals shall not taint our own kingdom; for as they sought the lesser of two evils, and in their arrogance chose the greater evil of obstructing this realm's harmonious law, neither must the people of this realm seek also a lesser evil; for it is still evil, and may lead to greater. Tell me, Steve Rogers, what person of our realm did yours wrong?"

What the hell was the first part of that speech supposed to mean? She was speaking English, but the twist in her logic... or maybe it was the starting point. He didn't know. The last sentence was the only thing that made any sense. "Um. It was a dragon named Fin Fang Foom."

The courtyard... nobody _tittered,_ but somehow the following ashamed silence managed to give off the same impression of nervous embarrassment.

Soen blinked empty eyes at him. "That is a ridiculous name."

Shit. "It's the only name we were told."

"Whomever told you must certainly have gotten it wrong," said Soen. "No one of this realm would bear such a name willingly; and if they bore it unwillingly, I would have heard."

"But it was through Allspeech. Unless – it was an alias," Steve said, and wanted to hit himself. Shit. Why the _hell_ had he not thought – Soen was right, it was a completely ridiculous name. "That's all we know," he said helplessly. "I saw him, he was a green dragon. Our ally said he was Fin Fang Foom, an exile of Maklu."

"Maklu!" exclaimed Soen; and everyone else in the courtyard made a bowing motion that, different as it was from sketching a cross over their chests, was unmistakably a gesture of faith. "You are pilgrims to Heaven, then – poor pilgrims indeed," she noted, "untutored and unwise, but the heavenly accords make some allowances for those who seek that most righteous path."

This wasn't Maklu.

Of _course_ it wasn't Maklu.

"We were trying to get to Maklu," said Steve, not quite managing to keep his irritation at this whole damn _day_under wraps. "We'd still like to get to Maklu. If you'll let us go and point us in the right direction, I swear to God we'll never come back here."

"Great Sage," said the judge, "while the laws call for leniency and mercy toward those who undertake the path to enlightenment, these men have no passports and no priest to vouch for them or to guide them. Without such they are less likely to go _anywhere_ except a prison somewhere else, upon another crime, and in that case we should have failed in our sacred duty to our neighbours to keep order and peace within our own lands."

"This is true," said Soen. "But dedication may propel a pilgrim where virtue would make a martyr; and obstructing another's path to enlightenment is, if a lesser evil, still evil." She turned to face the two young girls who were her apprentices. "Tell me, my disciples, how do you think their fitness should be judged?"

The girl on the right squeaked, blushed, and then composed herself, obviously giving the matter her full and very grave attention. The girl on the left kindly ignored this byplay, concentrating no less hard than her fellow student – and looking no less doubtful. Finally, after a full minute had passed, in a dead silence wherein not a single person in the courtyard had coughed, shifted in tiredness, or – so it felt like – allowed their attention to wander, the girl on the left suggested, "The path of enlightenment must be open to all. Should they convert to Buddhism and take the vow to seek heaven, then that should be sufficient, even if for a time they must be disciples without a master."

"So you do learn, although you must be quicker with the answer in future," said Soen, and both girls bowed to her. She turned back to Steve and Tony. "Well?

_No!_ Steve almost said before he could even think about it.

Then, _Why not?_

Because he wasn't – faith wasn't something to just _switch_, from one being to another – not for something as low as a ruse. Not even if, in the end, they were likely all come down to the same thing: a greater Good, and works toward it, be they done in the name of the Devil or any other evil... if there was a common ground, how much of a pretense would it even be? Besides, he wasn't Catholic anymore, no matter what that instinctual gut-clench felt like. And granted, he didn't know much about Buddhism, but it seemed a very enlightened religion – though if it was practised by these people, maybe he ought to reconsider that opinion.

"No thanks," said Tony, now sounding awake for the first time, and Steve turned to look at him in surprise.

_"Hey-remember-that-whole-bit-about-calling-names-gets-attention?"_ Tony's voice came out over the comm. too quick – fast enough that unenhanced humans wouldn't have been able to separate the words. And, considering – okay, Tony had a point.

He didn't agree in the Old Testament's god, even before that almost shattering blow to his faith. But if that god could be as petty as the Old Testament would make it sound – yeah, even the pretense of conversion, to _anything_, was a pretty dumb idea for more than moral reasons.

He needed to talk to a priest. Too bad he had yet to find one with a security clearance as high as his own. Leo was good at counselling, but... it felt like faith was all just intellectual to him.

First, though, Steve had a death sentence to worry about. And a zombie apocalypse, _still_.

"Hmm," said the judge. "Dedicated enough to thwart the law, but not dedicated enough to convert to the holy path. I wonder at the truth as you have presented it to us. Regardless, the accused have shown that they are unwilling to commit to seeking Heaven, and they must therefore feel the full weight of mortal law: and that is that they shall be beheaded before sunset upon this day. Take them away to the execution yard. This court is dismissed."

_"Ah, shit,"_ said Tony in Steve's ear, and Steve was pretty sure that it was never not going to be unsettling that Tony's lips weren't moving when he was talking. _"I need more time than that!"_

"Wait, just like that? Don't we get a last meal?" Steve protested – loudly. Dehua and the other guard who had been watching over their prison had stepped forward again as escorts – but everybody else was just leaving, except for Soen and her disciples. These people had sent out a whole slew of guards – and _dragons_ – to bring them in, and now they were leaving them alone with just two guards?

Though if 'Sage' meant 'Sorcerer'... Soen had raised the dead, or at least made a pretty good imitation of it. Steve added that into the tactical calculations and reshuffled the priority of his targets. Dehua was closest, and he and his fellow guard's skills were unknown, but Soen...

"What use would a meal be to one who is soon to die?" asked Dehua, sounding both curious and annoyed. "It would simply be more weight for your gravediggers to need to carry. Come; the execution yard is this way."

The courtyard was now empty except for them, Soen and the two girls watching with large, fathomless eyes from their position near the front of the room. The two girls – wizards in training? Kids could be legitimate threats, but ones that had to be accounted for defensively; bad enough if he had to kill their teacher in front of them.

"If we're being nice to our gravediggers, then I should mention I need to use the washroom." Whoops. That had come out a bit snider than he'd intended.

"Witnessing such cravenness is embarrassing," Dehua said crossly. "If you will not walk like proper adults, then we shall truss you up and carry you."

"Proper adults? We're not the ones executing people over a fine," Steve said, crossing his arms over his chest and doing his best to _loom_. He wished that the guards weren't both wearing those strange helmets; their armour was bulky enough that between it all, he only had verbal cues to go on – and these people were _weird._They'd already been caught wrong-footed too many times.

"The harmony of law must be maintained."

"The _purpose_ of law is justice; and this is a great injustice."

"The judge has spoken!" Dehua's fellow guard spoke up, her voice full of indignation. "You took your chance and turned it away."

"Because I believe in freedom of choice, and freedom of religion is part of that," Steve said calmly, trying not to show how much the words felt like a mockery. Everything he was saying was true – but it felt like he was just tossing spaghetti against the ceiling, waiting to see what would stick. If he couldn't figure out what they had in common, how could he get through to them? "It's a right beyond what a mortal court can enforce. And because I _also_ don't think I could just convert at the drop of a hat. How can you ask somebody to give up everything they've believed in all their lives? I can't do that and _mean_ it. Your judge – your Sage – " he turned to stare at the still-silent, still-watching Soen, "set me an impossible task, call me a coward when I refuse, and then sentence us to death. If that's what your law calls for, then your law is unjust – it's _wrong_."

"You are as strange as every name you have spoken," said Soen, silencing whatever the guards might have been about to say in return. She spoke very slowly – which was fine by Steve; Tony needed him to stall, so he'd stall. "You fear death beyond all reason – I can see it coiling about you. And yet you face it without trembling, indicating great bravery. Your realm must be very far away indeed, to have so lost the light of Heaven's teachings; I begin to wonder if you are not all mad, there."

He borrowed her trick, slowing down his own words; if the guards were unwilling to actually interrupt them, then he'd take full advantage of it. "I hope – I _pray_ – that there's something better waiting on the other side of life. If Tony and I die, if we fail here, then a lot more people will die. Maybe even our entire realm. Seven billion people – I don't know if that number means anything to you; hell, maybe it doesn't. I don't know that I get it, not really. Every loss of an innocent life is a tragedy. How can you – " his throat seized up. The entire world, gone – he had to think of it as_one_ world; seven billion people was just _too much_. "Every death will be a black mark against your law. It'll tarnish – it'll wither. And when you need it to protect you most, your sacred law will _shatter_. There's no virtue in an unjust law – only tyranny and suffering."

His own arguments were breaking him.

"Everyone dies," said Soen. "Except for those who have discovered the secret precepts of Immortality, and entered Heaven still living – but even that is a form of death. Families and close friends mourn, and upon the great holy days, they burn incense in memory and may converse with those fallen to learn of their status in the afterlife, and if there is anything that the living may offer up as a sacrifice to heaven to aid their loved one in sooner receiving reincarnation. Even realms die, and are reborn to be populated anew. This is the great cycle of the World and Heaven, the sacred and holy order that keeps all within balance. Loss is a thing to mourn; the absence of a friend may be a sorrow; but the path itself is one of joy and celebration, of learning and growing toward the ultimate virtue. Do not fear death, Steve Rogers; take your place within the dominion of God with acceptance and peace."

He couldn't tell if she was trying to lecture, scold, or comfort; and as he tried to sort through her words, Dehua and the other guard moved forward, raising their spear-like weapons enough to threaten. Threaten – with what, death? But if that was just the flip-side of life to these people – he didn't get it.

Maybe he was going about this the wrong way. Soen was telling him _something_ – he needed to work with that. If they could meet each other half-way... "If you say that's how it works here, in this realm – this _world_ – then I believe you," he said, raising his hands. She'd summoned a spirit into salt and petals; he didn't think this was just conflicting _faiths_. "But that's not how it works in ours. When people die, they move on – I hope to somewhere happy, but I don't _know_, because we don't get to talk to them again like you do. They're not reborn, and they don't come back. They're _gone_."

"You paint the picture of a cruel world indeed," Soen observed. "Yet God is infinite. You may not understand Heaven's great plan, but to rebel against it is nonetheless evil; your time would be better spent in contemplation, in the search for understanding." She shook her head. "I would that you had been willing to convert. Even if you might fail to reach Heaven, I think the journey would teach you much; but perhaps you simply are not destined to walk the western road in this lifetime."

It wasn't working.

There was no way they could possibly understand each other.

"I'm all about the search for understanding," Tony said, opening his eyes just as the faceplate of the armour slid down and shut. _"Especially understanding how to prevent people from disintegrating my stuff. Steve – grab on. Great work stalling."_

"Anytime," Steve said, his scowl half-hearted as he stepped forward to throw his arms around Tony.

"What are you doing?" demanded Dehua. "Our dragon guards and sky sorcerers shall bring you in again if you – "

Steve lost the rest of the words as all the colours of the worlds came to life, scarlet and rust and alabaster, viridian and shimmering gold, the hues so subtle he could drown in them and never long for breath.

Only Soen was different. Her dress was _life_, so many shades that Steve felt vertigo sweep over him just from looking at her, but her eyes – they were as dark and as empty as a starless night. There was no hunger in them, but her gaze pinned him as strongly as Tony's mag-lock, and it remained locked on them, even when Tony kicked in the repulsors and lifted them from the ground. Dehua and the guard were shouting, clapping their hands together in a manner reminiscent of the judge's trick, except how it wasn't doing anything. The two young disciples just looked confused. But Soen watched them, staring straight through the cloak, and Steve felt her gaze upon them even as Tony gunned it skyward and tore through the rice-paper roof.

The expanse of blue sky above knocked all the air out of him – he'd never known a colour could have so many variations come together so perfectly smooth. It was only with a wrench of willpower that he forced himself to breathe, to stop gawping and pay attention: this wasn't a couple of bored reporters sitting on his front step. Sure, they could take care of themselves against any individual soldier – and Tony seemed to have figured out a way to keep them from just dusting his armour – but if these people could send an _army_.

A minute passed as they looped away from the mountains, further into the rolling foothills that gave way to enormous worked fields. Smaller settlements spread out, away from the white road, which now ran along a river twice the width of the Hudson; it had come down from further north in the mountains than the road had. Or at least, Steve _thought_ it was north – but he realized with a jolt that it might not be. They were flying faintly toward the sun, which was maybe a hand's length further down than it had been when they'd been arrested, but was still pretty high in the sky – but what if this world rotated in a different direction? What if the sun rose in the north? Would a compass – he needed to stop over-thinking this. They were flying toward the afternoon sun, that made it west. With that decision made, Steve felt his internal sense of direction shift back into something approximating normal.

There was no sign of pursuit from the city rapidly dwindling behind them. Maybe, with luck, they'd be able to get outside of that kingdom's borders – however they were defined – and wouldn't be pursued over them.

But the technology to build a portal home wasn't going to be sitting around in a farmer's field. Unless Tony could 'reprogram' some more of extremis, or whatever the heck his armour was made of – but if he could, then he'd hardly have an enormous secret portal machine built in a mine in Ohio, now would he?

"We need to find another city," Steve said, shifting to protect his face more from the wind and closing his eyes – but even the darkness behind his eyelids looked like... _more_.

_"Uhuh. And do what when we get there?"_ Tony's answer was clipped, short.

Trying to keep track of what was going through Tony's head was exhausting. Had he been this mercurial before he'd gotten extremis? When he'd been crazy and paranoid and Steve hadn't noticed? Or was this how he _normally _was?

_"We need to figure something out before we get there,"_Tony said grudgingly, and they began a gentle descent toward – Steve looked up – another set of hills. The tops of them had enough tree cover that if they uncloaked, they probably wouldn't be noticed from the sky right away. There was a village just a few several miles further, but the farms were mostly situated on the other side. They coasted down in a circle, and Tony released the maglock, letting Steve jump down on his own before he touched down – but not in his trademark three-point landing.

"Are you okay?" The words were out before Steve even realized what he was about to say.

The faceplate flipped up. "Sure, Steve, I'm fine," said Tony, his smile sharp-edged. "I'm a complete idiot, but I'm fine."

Well, he wasn't wrong about that... "What the hell possessed you to try to make counterfeit passports with _extremis_?" Steve asked, and immediately regretted it – he shouldn't have asked until he could make it a question, not an _accusation_. One was conducive to teamwork and cooperation; the other wasn't. "I didn't mean – "

"I was scanning them, Steve, I already knew we weren't in Maklu, though I'd hoped they might give us directions," Tony sighed, holding up gauntleted hands. "Still pretty stupid – I should know not to underestimate alien tech..."

Steve didn't like the way _that_ trailed off. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"That bridges are impressive and so's extremis," Tony said, now exasperated. "What's your problem, Steve?"

"_My_ problem?" Just when he'd thought that maybe Tony _wasn't_ being an idiot – "_My_ problem is you're still not telling me anything! Where the hell is JARVIS? What were the scans you ran? What other _technology_ have you run into? I told you _my_ whole damn story because hell, I figured you were trusting me – but you're not! I'm walking in blind and I don't know a damn thing, because you can't be bothered to tell me that we're not even in Maklu before I have to find it out from that creepy sage!"

"I am telling you things," said Tony – calmer than Steve, almost creepily so – he'd sounded irritated a moment ago, but now it was like the words he was saying had no relation to the expression he was wearing, a disconnect that scraped further at Steve's raw nerves. "Steve, I didn't plan for this to happen."

"That's the problem with doing it on your own," Steve said, folding his arms across his chest. "Jesus, Tony, I don't care how much of a genius you are, everybody misses things. But every time I think I'm getting through to you – " he shook his head. "Back in that other reality – when you came and got me – it's like talking to a brick wall."

"Steve..."

Tony wasn't supposed to look hurt – he shouldn't get to feel hurt, damn it.

"You won't even tell me where the hell you've been for the past two months," Steve said, feeling very tired. Too many battles, and he'd been up with Bruce the night before; he should have been paying attention to his own reserves. Or maybe he'd just forgotten how draining dealing with Tony could be. He oughtta be fine for another day or so; this was probably just the adrenaline crash. "Science and upgrades and programming tricks you know I won't understand, sure. _Where_ you got the new armour – how you built yourself another secret facility, _why_ you built it – " he paused waiting for Tony to say something, to fill in one of the damn blanks without having it dragged out of him – but Tony was silent. "I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead, SHIELD thought I was crazy – hell, _I_ was starting to think I was crazy – " and that was an understatement, because for all of Fury's mysterious, uncalled for belief aside, after that radiation test he'd had nothing but doubt.

"So did I."

"What?"

Tony was staring fixedly at an otherwise unremarkable fallen tree-branch. "I thought I was crazy. And dead. Um, crazy while dead – I mean, it's a reasonable assumption; I've seen the afterlife and it sucks. Lots of grey, occasional over-sharing dead chick – "

"Tony." Steve was almost afraid to interrupt him – but if Tony went off on another damn tangent and ended up saying nothing, then Steve might just give in to the impulse to strangle him. Even if it was – Hell.

"Have you ever felt like your brain's not really yours?"

This was about extremis, then. "We're on another world," Steve said, taking a step forward. "You don't have to go – you _can't_ go anywhere near the rest of them, not right now. Your brain's your own – "

"Not what I meant – JARVIS, he thinks differently. Thought differently."

Had Tony seen the logs where JARVIS had explained that to Steve? The thought of Tony watching what had happened in those awful days when Steve hadn't just wondered if he was dead, but had _known_ – an angry knot of humiliation curdled in his gut. Steve forced it down. "Yeah." An idea came to him – "If you're having – difficulties – " difficulties with his brain being in two places, which didn't make any sense at all, " – could he help you?"

Tony looked taken aback, like this idea hadn't occurred to him. But he shook his head, instead walking over to one of the not-quite-familiar trees and sliding down to sit against its trunk. The armour looked ridiculous, with him posed like that – ridiculous, and slightly forlorn. "Yeah, he probably could," Tony said, and huffed a laugh. "But I can't risk him. Not yet."

"Why not?" Steve shook his head. "Why make a copy of him in the first place? If it's like – keeping somebody brain-dead, asleep in a coma – "

"It's not, Steve, the comparison only goes so far," Tony interrupted him. "He agreed to it willingly."

"Then why is it a risk?"

"I think – and I've seen evidence in other universes – that AIs are being targeted," said Tony. "They're being killed, or they go insane – but there's way too many of them going insane." He shook his head. "Okay, some didn't have the best childhoods – " Steve looked up sharply at the sudden loathing in Tony's voice, " – but there's way too many of them that were loved, and they're – statistically, there should be some that are making it out okay, and there isn't. Someone's interfering." The dark look on his face spelled out exactly who he thought that was.

"Why?" asked Steve, swinging his arms to try to work some of the tension out of his muscles. The new uniform flowed with him, allowing him a much greater range of motion than his old suit – something he'd noticed while fighting, earlier, but hadn't really had the chance to appreciate.

"Beats me," said Tony, far too flippant and bitter.

Steve shook his head. He was letting Tony get off track – not hard. There was so much that Tony hadn't told him, Steve was beginning to think he could wander off in random directions for the next year and still be telling him something that Steve should have known easier. "Why did you think you were crazy?" He froze, tensing. "You didn't actually _start_ going crazy again – "

"No, my hatchet job was fine," Tony said, and Steve was pretty sure nothing he'd said had deserved that much venom in response – except that it wasn't directed at him, he realized, just as he opened his mouth to protest. He shut it again. "No, it – you're going to laugh at me."

Of all the – "What?"

"It was the internet," Tony said, and he sounded embarrassed and half-awed and – half-terrified, which made Steve tense up again, because if the most technologically advanced man on the planet was terrified of Earth's own technology – had aliens done something to it? The internet was everywhere – Steve loved it, loved having all that information at his fingertips, on his phone, always available: pictures, maps, the news, _people_. Connections. Losing that would be a tragedy. "I can't even describe it, it was – I was in _bits_. Literally. And bits of myself, there'd be a – thought, and then something else would complete it, but – "

"You were – in the internet," Steve said slowly. _It's a trip,_ Tony had said before.

"Either that or hell," Tony said, almost _dreamily_. The hair on the back of Steve's neck would have stood up, if it weren't plastered to his skin by his suit. "Everyone dying, all my fault – numbers falling out of place – and I couldn't – it was like being surrounded by giants, everything was bigger, I was only in little pieces – scattered. I was part of the pattern – but no one bit of me could see it..."

"Tony," Steve said sharply – and for a moment he was half-afraid that Tony wouldn't look at him, or that he would, but he wouldn't be _seeing_ him – he'd be gone, someplace that Steve didn't really understand, and what the hell had Tony even been doing uploading himself to the internet in the first place – but Tony looked at him, clear-eyed, and Steve bit down on a sigh of relief.

"Sorry," Tony apologized. "I know. I should have – I didn't really think it was real." He sighed, thunking his head back against his tree. "Stupid, hey? Took me weeks just to figure out I was actually a person– I got back to my body a few days ago. And shit, I should've – being the internet was weird." He grinned; too bright and cheery. "I should've seen that one coming. Maybe I picked up a virus or something, and that's why we're not in Maklu." His tone was only half-joking.

A few days didn't make sense. "But that mine..." Steve felt his eyes narrow.

"I didn't lie to you, Steve, I swear," Tony said quickly – earnestly. Apparently he could make the same jump. "It wasn't there before – Shenzhen was the only one. But, hey, the internet – I had the backup armour, I had fabrication facilities, robots – everything gets hooked up online these days, you wouldn't believe. Moving things around – " he opened and closed the fingers on one hand, the metal moving so smoothly that he might as well have been wearing a glove made of cloth – and not thick cloth, either. "Okay, not like poking with one of these babies – these have sensors _everywhere_, spherical vision's great – but, like the Mark III or so. I could poke a hole through concrete without thinking too much, and not even feel it – it wasn't real." He shook his head, shoulders drawing in again – and the armour allowed even that movement, transmitted it loud and clear. "I didn't think it was real. I wasn't _capable_ of thinking it was real. My brain was in literal pieces, it wasn't – it took a while to link things up." He took a shuddering breath. "And then I realized it _was_ real."

"Okay," said Steve.

"Please believe me." Tony looked up, eyes only, head still too low and drawn in – Steve shook his head, and Tony looked crestfallen.

"No, I believe you." It was... Steve wasn't sure he really got what Tony meant, but it didn't sound... sane. "Why didn't you just tell me the first times I asked?"

"I wasn't sure you'd come." Tony's lips twitched up on one side. "I needed to go. I needed you with me. If you thought I was still crazy – "

"I know you're crazy." Steve scrubbed his hands over his face. "We're all crazy." Everything had gone insane.

"Not you," said Tony, and – he couldn't –

- the amount of _belief _packed into those two words –

Steve swallowed, and looked away. He'd deal with it later. Right now –

"Okay." Steve paused. "Thank you for telling me."

Tony smiled crookedly, like he could read all the frustration that Steve was trying to keep locked away from the forefront of his thoughts.

"We need to decide what we're doing from here. We don't know where Maklu is from here – "

"Probably west," said Tony.

" – other than that," Steve amended. "But a pilgrimage makes it sound pretty far..."

"Pretty far if you go on foot. We can fly."

"And get caught by more dragons, unless you can keep us invisible the whole way." And that was another concern – Tony might be immortal, _and _have extremis, but the suit still had an arc reactor in it, which meant that Tony probably did, too. That wasn't something Steve wanted to take chances around. "Can you?"

"Probably not," Tony admitted. "When I said it still chews through power quicker than the NIF, I... may have been understating the situation."

Steve tried to steer the conversation back on track. "So how long can it last?"

"Another half-hour." Tony stretched out his legs in front of him and crossed one jet-boot over the other. "...not so great, I know."

"Okay, so we need to know where we shouldn't be flying so we can go around those areas – we need a map." Steve shrugged. "There're villages all over the place – we can ask the locals at the nearest one for a map, or directions to Maklu. It sounds like they're pretty in favour of pilgrims who aren't wanted criminals."

"And the passports?" Tony sounded doubtful. "I reconfigured the armour to withstand a straight burst, but if I'm handing them over for inspection..."

"We ask very quickly, then," Steve said, and let himself grin a bit. This was what Steve had _done_ during the War – walk in, grab intel, walk out. Replace 'walk' with 'run', 'sneak', or 'swagger', depending on the town or fortress that the Commandoes were targeting. Occasionally, blow stuff up. Sure, they were on an alien world, but – well, Hydra's weapons had been pretty damn alien, too... had _actually_ been based on an alien artefact, as it turned out. He'd figure it out – that was what the Commandoes had been _for_.

"Right." Tony hauled himself to his feet, still looking tired; Steve flipped himself up and got a dirty look for showing off. "You want to lead the way, Captain, or should I keep playing taxi?"

"The way you go on about public transportation, you might as well."

Tony barked a laugh, the latter end of it getting cut off as the faceplate slammed down again. The maglock kicked in, the world grew brighter, and they lifted off.


	3. The Monk Tripitaka

It was only a short flight, over in less than a minute; Steve had taken longer ones hanging out of planes or helicopters... well, planes back in the day; helicopters were from recent weeks. They landed out behind a building where no person or security camera could see – at least, no security camera that Tony had managed to spot – and uncloaked. The feeling of disappointment that accompanied the dull colours of reality was just as sharp as it had been before, and Steve shook his head hard to clear it.

Tony's armour collapsed into normal clothes and a backpack, and Steve looked down at himself. He hadn't seen any laundry lines on the way in – often the Commandoes' first port of call, when they were out far enough to be cut off from a friendly base. "Damn it," he muttered.

"Take off the outer layer and turn it inside-out," Tony suggested, looking pleased with himself – and, sure, okay. Steve had to admire the effect – inside-out, with the cowl down, the top half of his suit didn't look too different from the black jacket that Tony was sporting, and the pants could have passed for normal in New York. The boots were still distinctive, but he'd probably pass. His shield, though...

Tony solved that problem by spreading some of the silvery metallic substance of extremis over it, and it faded into a non-descript brown – once Steve slung it on his back, it could have been mistaken for a backpack. Tony also dabbed the stuff on the cuts made in the outer uniform by the arrows – true to his earlier claims, they were already knitting back together slowly on their own, but Tony looked personally offended by their presence. "You could have mentioned something earlier," he muttered at Steve, but Steve found himself more distracted by the way the nano-stuff seemed to make the damage just _vanish_. Nifty stuff, that.

_Shame about the side-effects,_ he thought sourly.

It wasn't a great disguise. True, they looked different than they had in the city: Steve hadn't taken off his cowl in there, and Tony hadn't removed his helmet, so if it came down to a description of what they were wearing then they'd be fine. Steve had gone into plenty of Nazi towns in worse disguises – and been chased out of them, at times, but he'd gotten out alive. _After_, though, might be a different story: while the people here, like Asgardians, seemed to be taller on average than humans – tall enough to make both their heights unremarkable – their features were different. Their hair was going to stand out, especially Tony's; he'd gone with a ridiculously bright shade of blonde. Their complexion, eyes, and clothing all marked them as foreigners. If they were being hunted, then their pursuers would hear of this. And then they'd know that they were going west.

Well, it wasn't like they had much more than a vague hope lying westward, Steve reflected. If they picked up that they were being followed, then they could make a break north or south, try looking for another city in one of those directions instead.

"Their communications are weird," Tony said, his eyes searching the sky. "Not a lot of traffic I can pick up... I don't _think_ they've heard about us, though."

The town wasn't large enough to have a permanent market, but there was a larger-than-most central building which was topped in the same style as the city's pagodas and dressed in rich silks: either government, or religion, and if word hadn't already gotten out about them, then either would be their best bet for finding out which direction they needed to go. As they approached, however, one screen door was flung aside; and a young man wearing a coarse, un-dyed robe – more of a wrap, really – was thrown out onto the white stone road, bringing with him the stench of rancid sweat and old urine.

And blood: dried, but present in worrying quantity.

"Beggar! Be gone from here, and don't come back until you've had a dunk in a river!" cried a voice from within – evidently, the woman who had done the throwing. "Mind it's downstream from the town, too!"

The poor guy began picking himself up, making it as far as his knees before collapsing into great, blubbering tears. He raised his hands to cover his face, and in doing so revealed streaks of dried blood all down his front and one arm, splashing over onto the sleeve as well.

_Not your world, not your world_ –

"Sir, are you okay?" Steve asked, switching off acknowledgement of his nose and jogging over. He gave the guy a more thorough once-over as he got nearer – it didn't seem to be _his_ blood, though, or if it was, he must have had a healing factor to rival Steve's. That didn't mean that he hadn't been though hell, though – he looked up as Steve approached, and his eyes rolled in fright.

"Oh please, do not beat me, I am going!" he wept, scrambling to his feet and managing to lose one of his sandals in the process, and then hopping about awkwardly until he could get it re-tied. "I am sorry – I am _going_ –"

"I'm not going to hurt you," Steve said, hands up and open, empty. "I can tell you've had a rough time – maybe we can help."

_"Steve, are you _serious?" Tony's voice hissed over the comm. _"We've got enough problems to deal with already."_

Steve ignored him. Sure, they had _big_ problems – the entire Earth was counting on them, even if it didn't know it. Back in the War they had plenty of big problems. But right now, they didn't even know who to ask about directions – the locals didn't seem all that friendly. They could afford some kindness.

_"We don't have time to help every down-on-his-luck sob story – "_ so Tony had picked up on the blood, too, _" – who just happens to..."_ he trailed off. Maybe he'd noticed Steve was ignoring him. When he spoke next, his 'voice' on the comm. was thoughtful. _"Or. Okay. I guess we're doing this."_

The young man's sobs had quieted, and he was now staring at Steve with a mix of fear and hope. "Please, I have not seen kindness for days. I was beset upon the road by ogres, and – " a fresh gush of tears threatened, " – my disciples have been eaten, and so has my horse, and all of my supplies pillaged; I have but my sack and nothing else, and even with my passport no one will even _look _at me, and I have no money for the bathhouse, or for food – " and he broke into sobs again.

_Ogres_? Was he being literal? God knew it was possible, with everything else they'd seen.

"Well, we don't have any money either, unless they accept AmEx." The second part, muttered in an undertone, earned a quiet snicker from Tony. "But, here – " Steve dug out one of the ration bars from his belt. "It tastes weird, but it's filling."

The man fell on it like he hadn't seen food for days, ripping open the wrapper with filthy hands – Steve could practically _feel_ Tony cringing behind him. "Oh thank you, thank you – " he licked crumbs from his fingers and fell to his knees. "I am in your debt – thank you – you have reminded me that kindness can exist even in this imperfect mortal world."

"Thanks aren't necessary," Steve said firmly. "Though, if you happen to know how to get to Maklu – "

"You are making the pilgrimage to Heaven?" – and if the guy's eyes got any wider, they were going to fall out of his head. "That is where I am going! Or trying to go." For that matter, if he kept crying at such volume, he'd need to drink some water before he became dehydrated. Steve thought about frowning at Tony for ditching his water bottle, but he didn't want to upset the guy any _more_. The guy looked like he might faint if Steve scowled in his general direction. "But the road is so long! I knew it would be dangerous, and treacherous, but I didn't think every unholy demon would be waiting for me upon it."

"Well, as it happens, we're trying to get there, and we can fly," said Tony, stepping forward. "With 'we' meaning 'me and I can carry my friend, and if you take a bath first and point us in the right direction then I can carry you too'."

"But you can't get to Maklu by flying," the man sobbed, looking utterly disheartened once again.

"You can't?" Steve glanced over at Tony, who had gone still, his face blank.

A hiccough; "N-no, the states for the Passage to Heaven exist only in the first harmonic along the Great Roads."

" – Son of a bitch," Tony swore, clothing flashing over to gold and red, and in the next heartbeat he was sky borne – and then gone, leaving Steve staring after empty space. At least he'd cloaked himself from the dragons – or Steve _hoped_ that was what had happened –

"Tony!" he snapped into his comm.

_"Back in a – "_ There was a hiss of static.

_Damnit, Tony._"What did you mean?" Steve turned back to the only other source of answers. "If we fly, what happens?" The guy sobbed – Steve resisted the urge to shake him. Useful for hysterics, but given what the guy had been though, this might well be shellshock, in which case attempts to snap him out of it would just be cruel. "My friend just flew up – _where has he gone?"_

"Straight up. Only the l-lateral spacefolds are d-different at heights," the man sniffled, but he was now starting to look confused, like this was something that Steve really ought to know – like how two plus two was four. Personally, Steve preferred Thor's explanations – at least Thor could understand _why_ they didn't get something; this guy looked like he was wondering if the only nice person in the vicinity was just nice because he was a total dunce.

_"Shit, he's right,"_ said Tony over comms. _"There's – Jesus, this is weird. If I wasn't looking for it I'd never pick it up..."_

Steve turned away to stare at the sky, but he couldn't see anything. "Can you get back down here?" he asked tersely.

_"Chill, Cap, now that I know about it I can compensate for it,"_ said Tony, and Steve would have sworn that he calculated it to _just the right level_ of nonchalance to make Steve grind his teeth. His next words were in a grimmer tone, though: _"Though if I didn't have a computer in my brain, I admit keeping the calculations straight long enough to navigate anywhere would be tricky. Explains why there's no comm. chatter about us, though – we're nowhere near that city anymore."_ A low whistle. _"Earth is closer to Mars than we are to it."_

It took NASA nine months to send a spaceship from Earth to Mars. How big _was_ this world? Or was it a bunch of worlds? How had they not noticed changing worlds? It had been pretty damn obvious all the other times Steve had gotten yanked from one to another. "Can you compensate enough to get us to Maklu?"

_"Let me check."_ The comm. went silent, without even the static anymore.

"Tony?" Steve raised a hang to his ear – a stupid gesture, one he knew he didn't need, but he'd never been on enough undercover ops – not in modern times – to break it. "Tony!"

There was no response. What did that mean? Tony hadn't gone supersonic overhead; they'd have heard the boom. If he'd moved – but how long would it take a radio signal to get from Earth to Mars? Had they just been separated? No, Tony had said he could compensate – or was _trying_ to compensate –

"I'm sorry," wailed Smelly – Steve felt instantly bad for thinking of him that way, but the heightened adrenaline made the stink worse. "Please don't be angry at me!"

"I'm not angry at _you_, son," Steve said, and, "_Tony!"_

_" – back now,"_ and there was a roar of repulsors as Tony dropped into visibility and out of the sky, his landing pose three-point-perfect, the helmet melting away.

"Excuse us for a moment," Steve told the now-only-snuffling young man. No point in frightening him further. Then he grabbed Tony by the arm and bodily dragged him about fifteen feet away, hissing,

"Do you ever stop to _think_ – "

" – what? I got _back_ – "

" – just running off, what if you hadn't been able to come _back_?"

"It hasn't even been thirty seconds to you, what're you – look, genius! Supercomputer in head! Able to fly a dogfight and solve P vs NP at the same time, _it wasn't –_ "

"Yeah, that's how we wound up _here!_"

"_That_ wasn't – " Tony started indignantly, and then deflated. "Okay, fair point."

"I get it, you see things and it takes time to explain it to the rest of us," Steve said, forcing himself to speak evenly. "But if you run off and get yourself killed, _I can't come and get you_. And that leaves me stuck here, too. Think about _that_, will you?" Because arguing about how they would _both_ be safer – arguing about the purpose of teamwork and its place in modern warfare – wasn't going to get through Tony's head, he knew it wasn't.

Tony had sobered; he met Steve's eyes squarely, but there was shame in his own when he did. "Right. Another fair point." He hesitated. "I'm sorry, Steve. I guess I've gotten used to working alone."

"Well, get used to having a team again." Steve breathed in and out, a huffing sigh to clear his lungs, and turned back to his... rescuee? He wasn't quite sure what the guy was – although at least he seemed to be calmer than he had before – which wasn't what Steve had expected. They were behaving badly, he knew that.

"He's right, unfortunately," Tony said quietly. "The roads have a different field around them – they're... tunnels through spacetime? That's a shitty comparison. I don't know how to explain it without a lot of math... but he's right. I'm not sure even flying _close_ to the road would work; the readings I got show it drops off so quick I'm pretty sure there needs to be periodic contact to renew the mobile field, and the period's not long."

That... wasn't good. If Steve understood it right. He rubbed at his forehead. "We could stay in radio contact in the fighting before the city, and you were flying around then."

"You weren't on the road, though," Tony said. "And the road's key, if we're going to get to Maklu. We might actually have to walk." He glared at the road like this was personally offending him in refusing to give up its secrets. "And hope like hell we're on the _right_ road, because they're all like this."

Walking. How many months would _that _take?

Steve's rescuee was staring at Tony like he was a promise from heaven, and his eyes flicked over to the covered shield like it, too, held the secret of happiness... Steve frowned, shifting uncomfortably. From Earth to Mars – but if Asgardians could hear across worlds, maybe this place had communications that spanned that far, too. "Son?"

"You are going to Maklu," the young man said. "And you do not know the way. In the worldly tongue I am known as Tripitaka, after that buddha who brought back the scrolls of Heaven to the poor east. If you will shave your heads and take vows, then I will accept you as my disciples and guide you upon the path to the Heavenly Mountain."

"Yeah, we're not doing the vows part," Tony said flatly.

Tripitaka looked so crestfallen that Steve added, "Sorry," reflexively.

"But you are to be my disciples," he insisted. "I know you are. The Bodhisattva Kuan-Yin visited me in a dream and told me so – and look," he dug into the worn cloth bag that he carried, and pulled out golden bowl, much dented on one end; a plain but obviously well-cared-for metal circlet, like someone might wear to keep a cloth head-covering in place; and an obviously very sharp razor-blade that looked a lot like the one Steve usually used for shaving, except even more old-fashioned. Tripitaka held out these items with the expression of a man offering incontestable proof. "And she guided me to the rock these were buried beneath and I dug them up the next day, so you cannot claim that it was merely a dream of no substance at all."

Steve held up a hand. "Hang on. Who's this... Bodhisattva?" He was pretty sure he wasn't pronouncing that right at all, enhanced memory or not.

"The holy Kuan-Yin, Who Observes the Sounds of the World, the Mercy Goddess."

"But why would she... huh," Tony said, and reached out to take the circlet from Tripitaka; the monk happily let him have it. "Okay, I can believe she's from Maklu."

"Extremis?" Steve asked warily.

"The properly working kind – maybe." Tony frowned at it, flipping it over and over between his hands, staring at it. He broke the look long enough to give Tripitaka an irritated glance, and then, gingerly, set it on his head. His gaze went very far away. "Huh."

"Well?" asked Steve.

"Not sure," said Tony vaguely. "It's got some kind of built-in interface popping up, but it's not letting me – "

Tripitaka mumbled something under his breath, nonsense words; Steve shot a glance at him, but his lips were barely moving. He looked nervous. "Tony, maybe you shouldn't – "

Tony's face twisted in agony; he dropped to his knees, clutching at his head with a half-strangled scream. Steve lunged forward to pull the damn circlet off and had to pry Tony's gauntleted hands away first, but even then the metal wouldn't budge beneath his fingers. It was like it was welded to Tony's skull, except that Steve could _break_ welds – he couldn't use more force than he already was; he might break _Tony's_ skull instead. Or worse: the edges were vanishing beneath his fingertips, like the more he tried to pull it away, the more it tried to burrow beneath Tony's skin. _Shit._It had to be something like the maglock – something internally activated. "Tony! Stop accessing it, turn it _off_ – "

Tony sagged in his grip, seized-up muscles going limp, but when Steve tried to pull the circlet away it still stayed locked fast. At least Tony was no longer _screaming_ – he didn't sound entirely with it, though, as he breathed, "_What_ the hell...?"

Steve straightened, keeping one hand on Tony to keep him from toppling over, and rounded on Tripitaka. It was all he could do to keep from barking at the man like a drill sergeant – "What is that thing?"

"It – it is one of the treasures of my namesake," babbled Tripitaka. "The headband worn by the Great Monkey Sage during his journey to the west as Tripitaka's disciple. See, I knew Kuan-Yin was right! It would not have worked if you were not the ones meant to come with me."

Tony was climbing to his feet, no lingering traces of pain present in his demeanour other than considerable wariness – so Steve left him to stand on his own, strode over to the monk, and pulled Tripitaka toward him with a hand fisted in the front of his robe. He glared down – a _long_ way down; Tripitaka was probably even shorter than Steve himself had been before the serum. "You mean it was _supposed_ to do that?"

"I – " Tripitaka's eyes were round as saucers, and Steve realized what he was going to just a moment too late. He still mumbled – nobody without enhanced hearing would have picked up the syllables – but the moment the first sound dropped from his lips Tony was screaming again, and Steve lifted Tripitaka into and shook him _hard_, breaking the awful mumbling chant –

"Do that again and I will kill you," Steve promised him, feeling the sick resolve of necessity settle in his gut. Oh, he might be able to knock the guy out – but they didn't have any way to bring him to justice, and he had the bad feeling they'd been conned.

"No, no!" protested Tripitaka, flailing his feet. "You can't – you're supposed to come with me as my disciples!"

"We are _not coming with you_," Steve said, barely keeping it from being a snarl. "Tell us how to get it off him!"

"Jesus Christ, my empire for an Advil," Tony said from behind him, sounding muffled, like he was speaking into his hands. Steve turned so he could keep an eye on him – he was, in fact, speaking into his hands, having retracted the armour's gloves to pry at the metal band with his bare fingertips. That... wasn't a good sign.

"I don't _know_," protested Tripitaka. "The Bodhisattva only taught me the mantra of constriction!"

"Then how did this – monkey sage get rid of it?" Steve demanded. Oh, Lord, if the answer was _death_ –

"When he ascended the mountain of Heaven and reached true enlightenment it vanished," squealed Tripitaka, and Steve forced himself to relax his grip before he accidentally strangled the lying little monk. There had to be a special place in hell for men who abused their religious authority with such goddamned temerity. "You _have _to come with me – "

"We're _not_," Steve said, dropping him to the ground with disgust. Tripitaka didn't manage to keep his feet, even though it was only about a foot of a drop, and landed in a heap on the road. Steve leaned down, picked up his sack, and emptied it out beside him – but there wasn't anything else that looked like the circlet. Still, the first jewellery... "Tony, anything weird about the rest of this stuff?"

"No," said Tony after a second. "I think. Shit, maybe it's just turned off." His voice was almost normal – _almost_. There was a thin, shaking undercurrent that he wasn't quite managing to hide.

Steve nodded, and began picking up the rest of it to stuff it back into the sack – they could drop it into the river; hopefully that would be enough to keep Tripitaka from using it on somebody else. "We're leaving, and we're taking this with us," he informed Tripitaka. "If you try using that phrase again, we'll come back, and I _will_ kill you."

It was almost like the War, being in occupied territory, dealing with members of the Resistance who went too far over the line – but there was no authority to turn to here, no friends, no family, no fellow members of the Resistance who could see past their terribly justified pain. _Here _these people killed people because apparently it didn't mean anything – what if they thought of torture the same way?

"If you kill me, I'll just say it from the underworld," Tripitaka said, his voice trembling but not backing down despite the fresh tears on his face. "Monkey wouldn't obey Tripitaka, and he wouldn't have reached Heaven if Tripitaka hadn't forced him to keep to the paths of holiness; and you won't either, if you don't have a priest to guide you. This is my _duty_ – "

Steve turned his back on him; the rest of the words filtered into his brain and were catalogued, but he needed to know – "Is he right_?"_ he asked Tony in a low voice, kneeling down and putting an arm on Tony's shoulder. "Could he – "

That somebody could curse you all the way from Hell – well, it wasn't like it was unheard of in religion. It just wasn't the sort of thing that Steve had expected to see working through an alien device. It would be from another _world_ – and in this world, without satellites, the radio had cut out when Tony had gotten too far away. But radios worked – well, Steve wasn't entirely sure how they worked, but he knew it wasn't by sending the sound itself across all that distance; there was some sort of intermediate signal. On the other hand, Tony had said that Asgardians, and other small-g gods, could _hear _their names spoken across such distances. If they could do _that,_then they could probably make devices that triggered on it, too...

They had been so damn lucky that Loki had no head for strategy _or_ tactics _or_ logistics. Fury hadn't been wrong when he'd said Earth was hopelessly outgunned.

Which didn't help their current situation any, Steve thought, as Tony gave a small nod. Steve gripped his shoulder tighter – Tony's face was far too pale, and though he was doing an admirable job of keeping any sign of tension from his expression, his eyes wouldn't settle – he kept flicking his gaze about, rapid-fire fast, scanning for _threats_–

Steve found himself reconsidering letting Tripitaka live, with a sort of brutal resolve he hadn't felt since the War. But killing him wasn't an option.

Time to review what options he did have, then. He could knock him out, or do worse – enough brain-damage and he wouldn't be speaking anything. A broken jaw would accomplish the same thing – probably; he wasn't so sure he could knock out Tripitaka permanently without just outright killing him. Humans were damn fragile, and this particular type of alien didn't seem much tougher. The people in this village probably weren't inclined to give him medical care – which gave poor odds for Tripitaka surviving. But if he left him incapacitated, then he might heal, or get healing, or – _damn it_ –

"I promise, I _promise_ I won't use it again except if you leave," squeaked Tripitaka. "You have to take me with you!"

"I think I'd rather just kill you," said Tony, too calmly, as he climbed back onto his feet. Steve helped – or tried to; Tony wouldn't bend, wouldn't let him take any weight, but Steve was damned if he was just going to let him go, not with that look on his face.

"Well – you can't!"

Steve swore, mentally, with every curse he'd ever learned from the Army, and a fair number that were particular to Depression-era Brooklyn – because the bastard was right. If they left him, if they cracked his skull open – unless they came across someplace they could stick him in prison without worrying that he'd just get himself executed for being rude in court, or decide that if he couldn't make it to Heaven, he'd at least be a damn nuisance in Hell –

"Extremis," said Steve, speaking solely to Tony. "Can you – I don't know, infect him with some nanobots and use them to prevent him from talking?"

Tony shook his head, face pale. "No. Hard override, no infecting other living people: first thing I put in, back when it was still malleable – even I can't get back around it now."

A gag. Restraints. They'd have to feed him – how far would Tripitaka's dedication go? Humans could be damn creative about suicide, and they didn't even know how Tripitaka differed from human; the people here – or back in that city, so far back as to be on another planet – they had different vocal chords, so what else was different? They only needed to fail once –

"_Fuck,_" said Tony, vicious and succinct.

* * *

"Your lasers – "

"Are a no-go. Even thinking about trying to cut it off makes it start burrowing into my head." Tony's voice was quiet, flat.

"How sure are you that he'd be able to trigger it from beyond the grave?" Steve kept one eye on Tony, and the other carefully on Tripitaka, who was scrubbing off by the side of the river. He didn't trust the monk to not fall in and drown – and then take it out on Tony. But the man really did need to clean off, and so here they were, standing near the grassy bank just past where the last farmer's field ended.

"I appreciate the thought." Tony smiled tightly. "Very sure."

Steve glanced sideways at him.

"The dead and the living can cross paths, depending on the afterlife. You should read some of the legends." He wrinkled his nose. "Who knew, all that mandatory Classics paid off."

"I've read some." Steve shrugged one shoulder. "Hard to tell what's real."

"Well, this part is." Tony was far too subdued for Steve's comfort – and he was volunteering information. Cooperating, and meekly. Steve wanted to strangle Tripitaka. "When I – fell, I told you – I ended up in one. An afterlife, I mean. Boring place, the owner was pretty dour – had surprisingly good company, though." His gaze slid off of Steve toward the ground, like he couldn't bear to look at him any longer.

Steve blinked in sudden understanding, and had to force himself to breathe in. Out.

This shouldn't feel like a kick to the gut.

"You weren't – " said Tony, right at the time Steve asked, "What did – "

They stopped, looking at each other – and then away; they needed to keep an eye on Tripitaka... whose arms were pinwheeling; he'd mis-stepped, one foot sliding out from beneath him. Steve started upward in concern, but a moment later the monk fell over backward and managed to land on the flatter part of the embankment behind him.

"You're not a replacement," Tony said, and didn't that feel like just _another_ sock in the gut, because Steve hadn't even considered –

Had he?

That week when Tony hadn't known him, after Anthony had wiped his mind – hadn't he wondered since then if the man he knew was real? Tony had been crazy, then dead, and now he was possibly part zombie – Steve hadn't known him. Why was it so hard to imagine that the reverse had been true, too? Except that Tony said it wasn't.

"You sure about that?" Steve asked instead of his original question.

Silence. Steve glanced at him again; Tony's shoulders were slumped. "No."

Steve shook his head and laughed softly. "It's not like I can hold it against you."

It didn't matter. They were friends now – right?

"I'm sorry I can't – " Tony's voice caught; he broke off and coughed before he tried again. "Everything died, Steve. It took maybe half an hour. After that there was just the dead – and there you were again."

"Tony. It wasn't me."

"Similar enough, when you weren't being a dick." It was a half-hearted insult; pathetic for use against enemies and not funny enough to be an endearment toward a friend – a poor effort all 'round. "I don't know how long – I think it was months. Time was strange. It's strange here, too – time is passing slower for you when we're split up, I've been checking your watch."

Steve started, his train of thoughts diverting onto another track. "What?" Tony had said – _It's been thirty seconds for you._ "When you went to go check the..." he waved a hand at the sky to indicate spatial _weirdness_, "how long was it for you?"

"Couple of hours," Tony admitted, and, "Don't look at me like that."

"I'm not – "

"I could see there was time dilation after two minutes, I knew you'd be feeling it slower. I needed the additional scans to tell me how _much_slower, but it wasn't hard." He hesitated. "I already apologized for this."

He sounded apologetic _now_. Was that because he really meant it, or because he was still shaken by the circlet sitting on his head, the one that the fingers on his left hand kept worrying at?

This wasn't – helping. "How close do we need to stick to the road?" Steve asked instead.

"Close. The field strength damps pretty quick in air – I wish Bruce could see it, the readings are... it's amazing, really, how it works. The path it takes you on – anybody standing beside the road oughtta be impossible to see, but hey, there they are... until you blink, I guess." He held his hands about a foot and a half apart and brought them together, then apart again. "The capacitive effect is a lot stronger in the horizontal plane – you keep the field with you when you step off of it, for just a bit, until the charge wears off. Sort of. Well, not really, but it's a good enough comparison."

A bit of excitement was starting to come back into his voice, bringing back the memory of grease and metal, murmured explanations over holograms in a darkened room. "You figured out how it works that quick?"

Tony snorted. "Oh, god, no. What it does, yes – sort of. _How_, no way. It's even more complicated than the bifrost in one of the gold-marble-worlds. I wish I had more time to play with it." He sounded wistful. "I could take a bit of it apart, probably. Something that large – it's got an energy source I could tap into, send you home."

_You_. Steve glanced again at Tripitaka, had given up on using his clothes as rags to scrub himself with, and simply climbed in, holding tight to a nearby tree-root. He looked like a drowned rat, but somehow, Steve couldn't manage to feel much sympathy for his shivers. "I'm staying."

Tony took a moment to answer; when he did, it was over the comm., and quiet. _"Thanks."_

Tripitaka must have slipped on the river bottom – or perhaps he was just that naturally clumsy. One moment, he was standing upright in the shallows, the next he was being carried downstream, doing a poor imitation of swimming that barely managed to keep his head above water.

"Damnit," Steve muttered, lunging for the bank – because he certainly wasn't going to put Tony in the position of needing to fish the bastard out.

Not that it kept Tony from going after him anyway. _"Steve, your suit's awesome, but it's not waterproof,"_ Tony said over the faint clicking noises of the armour solidifying. He stepped past Steve and into flight so smoothly that Steve did a double-take. He'd been _good_ before extremis – but that kind of takeoff was something else.

Tripitaka's head disappeared beneath water; Tony skimmed close to the surface, one hand out to balance himself in the air, and with the other hand punched down into the river, emerging with an iron grip about Tripitaka's wrist. He reversed course smoothly, with admiral care for his passenger – Tripitaka's momentum swung him out, but not far, the forces gentle enough that –

"Look out!" Steve barked, the shield in his hands before he had time to register what he was seeing. He pivoted, arm curling out and extending, the shield singing as it flew through the air. The warning had been unnecessary, shouted without thought: Tony had already been reacting, and his sharp, sudden acceleration whipped Tripitaka around and just over the shield's arc. It connected solidly with the scales of the monster rising from the river: a sea-serpent – or, well, a river-serpent. It looked an awful lot like the dragons – it had the same type of shimmering, subtly iridescent scales – but its five long fins marked it as different: one starting from the crown of its head and flaring straight up and two more on each side, pointing up and down. From head-on it looked like an x-wing with an antenna stuck on it. Then it twisted to the side as the shield struck it, and Steve got a good look at the lethally sharp blades spiking off of those fins at artistically pleasing intervals.

Damn it. Another dragon attacking them for no reason –

- _hang on_–

"Tony, back off," Steve snapped, and then, projecting his voice like a drill sergeant (or rather, like Annie, who had been the chorus line leader for the USO girls and could have bellowed any drill sergeant into the ground), "We do not intend to trespass! We're backing off!" _Names – they'd said they had to declare –_"My name is Steve Rogers, and my companions are Tony Stark and Tripitaka. We're travelling to Maklu. As pilgrims," he added, because even if it wasn't _exactly_ the truth, it was close enough – and he'd take every advantage he could get. His shield arced back toward him and he raised a hand to catch it.

Tony was already back land, of course – even carrying a squishy passenger, he could have flown across Manhattan during that speech. Now he hovered above Steve, having dropped Tripitaka in a groaning heap about a hundred yards back from the bank. But the river-dragon _had_ paused as Steve spoke – listening? He couldn't tell. How was he supposed to read the expression of something, somebody, who was so completely alien?

The giant head wavered; the fins flared, rippling down its enormous sides to where they vanished beneath the water – rendering it effectively invisible to Steve, at least. Did it have some way of hiding from Tony's scans, too? Or had it just travelled fast enough that speed allowed it to seem like it was sneaking up on them? The sky-dragons had gotten the drop on Tony back at the city, but that could have been by the same effect. Space itself was weird here (and God knew that something that would make Tony sound so gleefully awed had to be _really weird_), and that made it hard to come up with a yardstick against which to measure their abilities. A yard might be a mile – might be a solar system.

The river-dragon dropped entirely beneath the surface. The fast-running river carried the ripples of its presence downstream and, within seconds, dispersed them entirely. A retreat? Or a tactical repositioning so it could ambush them from another angle? The road ran along this river for now; the thing would have plenty more opportunities to ambush them.

_"It's gone,"_ said Tony, sounding baffled. _"How the hell_ _did it_– _I'm impressed._"

That answered the question about whether it could beat Tony's sensors, at least. Did it? "It didn't just swim really far away really fast?"

_"If it hit a spatio-temporal distortion sharp enough to vanish on my sensors like that, it's dead. Though I suppose it could help... use the folds while... huh..."_

_That_ tone was familiar. Alright – time to get a move on. They needed to get to a town willing to take pity on pilgrims, and try buying supplies supplies in exchange for a day or two of labour – according to Tripitaka's complaints on their walk over to the river, the locals were spiritually bereft and would offer no sort of succor at all. If it hadn't been for the underhanded monk's trump card, Steve would have tested that assertion – but he didn't dare set Tripitaka off into the sort of hysterics that he'd been in before. On the other hand, Steve didn't want to give him too much free reign – if he stopped being such a snivelling coward, then he could turn the current situation completely FUBAR.

And Tony... hadn't said anything one way or the other.

"Alright," Steve said, striving for a normal tone. "You can think about it on the road – it's time we were moving anyway, and I don't wanna be hanging around here if that thing decides to come back."

Tony landed, his jet boots squishing softly in the ground of the bank – with the armour, he had a heavier footprint than Steve, although not as heavy as the Mark VIII would have made. "I hate running in this thing, it's such a waste of time," Tony sighed, retracting the faceplate, and then perking up as a thought occurred to him. "Hey, I could reconfigure the armour for roller-skates – the road's smooth enough. Repulsor propulsion – "

"Run the numbers a few more times first," Steve said, because even if that sounded like the stupidest idea in the world, it might work. But it probably wouldn't be very comfortable. "Until then, I'll carry him." He certainly wasn't going to ask Tony to do it – aside from any personal concerns, if Tripitaka needed to be choked out in a hurry, Tony likely wasn't going to be able to do it. Letting the guy walk was out of the question - just the short trip over to the river, away from the road, had been painful. Steve could have outrun him at age six, asthmatic and all.

"Sure. I need to figure out where to pull the mass from." He sighed. "Extremis lets me self-repair the armour, but the damn dragon charred off a half-kilo of it."

And then he'd wasted some of it on the fake passports, too. Did this mean that they needed more supplies than just food? "Can you make more?"

"It's all nanobots, Steve – yes, I can make more, but since I'm not exactly a fusion reactor I need base elements." He brooded. "Well, part of me's a fusion reactor, but not one that works like that. I have some supplies... eh, but a half-kilo's not worth the effort of digging into those reserves. I wish I knew how Bruce does it."

Base elements. Well, everything was base elements, right? So he needed... iron? "They had metal tools back in that town."

"Awesome nicknames aside, not _actually_ made of iron, here."

"Gold-titanium alloy, I know."

Tony snorted. "So you were listening."

"Always was."

"Right." Tony looked away, shifting uncomfortably. "Add in a bunch more carbon, these days, but that's not a problem. I've got spare titanium and gold to spare, though picking up more wouldn't hurt. The main problem is that building more isn't instantaneous."

And until then, Tony would be functioning with under-strength armour. Great. Steve clapped him on the shoulder again, acutely aware of how much he was checking his strength. Maybe he didn't need to, against Tony, who rebuilt himself with extremis. Maybe he did, more than ever. "Next town, people'll be friendlier."

"Sure, if we can get there without being eaten by a dragon," Tony said dryly. He shifted again, and grimaced as the mud squelched around his boots.

"Time to go," Steve said softly, and he dropped his hand, took a breath, and squared his shoulders. _You can do this._Without _killing the bastard._

"You saved my life!" Tripitaka exclaimed at them both as they neared. "See, I told you, you're meant to be my disciples."

_"You need to stop talking, except to answer questions,"_Tony said, his voice flat and metallic through the helmet.

"But I'm meant to impart holy wisdom to you."

"There is nothing holy about what you're doing." Steve loomed over him. He seemed to have bounced back awfully fast from being robbed, destitute, and then attacked by a river dragon – even though his clothes were all still soaked through, and despite the sun shining down, it wasn't all that warm. Probably it was from having power over somebody else – Tripitaka struck him as _that_ type of bully. "Because we have to, we're taking you with us to Maklu. Since we gotta stay on the roads, I'm going to carry you."

"Oh, that will be much faster," said Tripitaka, looking nervous but pleased, which was somehow more annoying than if he'd kicked up a fuss.

Tripitaka's clothes were damp and disgusting – the monk himself was damp and disgusting – but since the river apparently wasn't safe, Steve would just have to put up with it until they found a friendlier village. He knew from hard experience long before the War that the smells would fade to unimportance in a few minutes. Having the foul smell soaking through his uniform was less unpleasant than the mental weight of carrying around the odious little man, piggy-pack style. Tripitaka barely weighed anything.

_"Roller-skates,"_ Tony said firmly in his ear, jogging along beside him. They were sprinting, by any normal human standard, but Steve could keep this pace up all day.

The movements of the armour were too precise – no, that was the wrong word. Too repetitious. Each step was exactly the same as the last one. Before they'd been running a minute, even if Tony hadn't previously mentioned that he was using the armour to run, it would have been obvious.

"You are very fast," said Tripitaka, clutching at Steve's shoulders more strongly.

"Shut up and meditate," Steve told him, and to Tony, "Using wheels to travel over a flat road? That might just work." Except – roller-skates, _really?_

_"Ha! No, you're right, the point is to maintain a minimum amount of _contact _with the road... if I put the wheels on my hands and fly horizontal, that'll be much more efficient."_

There was a Stark Industries inside joke that Pepper had once told him, about the various ways Tony Stark had made his engineers cry over the years in his pursuit of efficiency. It would have been crass to say it, though, so instead Steve just said, "Sounds like a good way to give your passengers a deadly case of road rash."

_"I never said the calculations wouldn't be complex. Good thing my brain's a supercomputer now, isn't it?"_

Right, because Tony being infected with extremis was such a good thing.

_"And – hang on. There's a bridge up ahead – and something on it."_

Steve squinted. Was it just his imagination, or did the road blur? It could have been heat radiating off of the stone. They drew nearer, and it resolved steadily: the road sweeping into a gentle arc, stone supports falling away beneath, the gentle rush of water – a _lot_ of water, but without much in the way of rapids.

On top of the bridge, near the rails, was one of those uncomfortably six-legged horse-like creatures. It had on a tall saddle – which tapered a bit, until Steve could see how it might be possible for someone human-sized to sit on the thing and still be able to walk afterward – and a great many saddlebags, more than Steve thought an ordinary four-legged horse would have been able to happily carry, especially packed as full as they looked. There were bright green ribbons braided into its mane and tail, and an intricately wrought bit in its mouth; the reins had been wrapped around the saddle pommel, though, rather than about the stone rails. Its owner was nowhere to be seen.

If there was an owner. The horse eyed them curiously as they made their way up to the bridge – at a walk, now, more cautiously than before – but as soon as they'd stepped foot upon the span, it tossed its head, whinnied with something that sounded like joy, and headed straight for them at a fast trot.

_"Alien horse, huh,"_ said Tony, raising his hands, palms up and repulsors glowing, ready to fire.

"It might be friendly," said Steve. It could be. He slipped his shield so that it was ready to throw anyway.

"Oh, yes!" said Tripitaka. "The Bodhisattva said that the river dragon would be my mount. This must be him, come to make amends!"

What?

The horse trotted up in a friendly fashion, slowing to a halt several feet away, at which point it neighed happily and stuck its head out – for a carrot? Or was it looking for an opportunity to bite him? Steve's real-life experience with horses was limited to catching glimpses of them through train-windows, when the USO tour had passed near the occasional field with them – he'd never been this close to one before. Of course, he still wasn't anywhere near an _actual_ horse – and it was probably pretty stupid of him to think of it like a horse. The dragons had all been able to talk; the horse didn't _look_ like a dragon, Tripitaka's bizarre comment aside, but there was a good chance it was just as smart as any of them.

"Uh, I'm Steve Rogers, this is Tony Stark, and we're going to Maklu," said Steve. If it was anything like a dragon, it was probably best to get the necessities of polite – or at least non-homicidal – society out of the way first. "And this is Tripitaka, who is... coming with us."

The horse nickered softly, and butted its head forward – Steve tensed, and almost brained it with his shield, but it just seemed to want to nuzzle at his hand. Well, that was... promising?

"You are the river dragon who is to carry me to Maklu," said Tripitaka happily, hopping down from Steve's back and stepping forward to reach up for the reins. It was a long way up, Tripitaka being as short as he was, and as damp and still dirty as he was, he made a poor contrast to the fine quality of the horse's mane and its gear.

But the horse didn't seem to mind – or at least, it was too polite to show anything if it did mind. Though it did stop nickering so happily. Instead, it solemnly dropped down, into an awkward half-bow, before settling enough that Tripitaka would be able to easily reach its back – or _should _have been able to easily reach its back. Tripitaka immediately tried scrambling up and nearly fell over the other side before Steve caught the back of his robe and hauled him into a balanced spot.

The horse rose gracefully up to standing again and plodded off the road some distance, Tripitaka hanging onto the pommel for dear life despite the sedate, practically snail-like pace. Steve watched apprehensively for a minute before going after it: it was heading for the river-bank. But the horse stopped before the actual water, at a spot where the drop-off turned into a small pebbled beach, shallow water not nearly deep enough for a river-serpent to swim or hide in. Then it dropped to its haunches again and whinnied. Pointedly. Tripitaka, perhaps shoved by a rocking motion on the part of the horse, tumbled to the ground.

_"I think I like him,"_ remarked Tony. _"Let's call him George."_

"If it's a him," said Steve, and shrugged. "Maybe he has soap?"

_"Hey, George, do you have soap in those saddlebags?"_Tony asked aloud.

George whinnied again, dipped his head around to one of the saddlebags, and began tugging at the fastening with his teeth. He worried at them for a few seconds before giving a gesture that looked like a shrug – evidently easier for a horse that had three front legs instead of one with merely two – and looking pointedly at Tripitaka. Apparently not completely blind – maybe self-interest made him smarter? – Tripitaka unfastened it and began digging through it, coming up with a cloth bag holding something shaped like a brick.

_"Okay,"_ said Tony thoughtfully. _"Operation: Rollerskates has gotten upgraded to Operation: Jet-car. Shit. I don't have enough raw materials on hand for that. We're gonna need to go shopping."_

* * *

"What should – we call you?" Steve huffed out sometime later. The river was far behind them; they were travelling at a pretty good clip now, enough to wind even him. The horse was breathing harder, too. Tony didn't sound like he was putting out any effort at all, but then, the armour was doing the running for him – and anyway, he was communicating over the radio with his mind. Lungs didn't enter into it.

The horse whinnied, then made a noise that sounded much closer to a growl than anything Steve had ever expected to hear from a horse. It was a surprise to the horse, too – its eyes rolled back, ears flicking back to lie as flat against its skull as they could go, and it briefly kicked up its pace to outstrip both Steve and Tony.

_"Woah!"_ exclaimed Tony, taking off from the road and jetting along to keep up, but the horse slowed after only a few seconds anyway – which was a good thing, because Steve wouldn't have been able to catch it even while sprinting.

"That is not becoming behaviour!" squeaked Tripitaka, who was holding to the saddle pommel with a death-grip. "Shame!"

The horse, for its part, did actually look embarrassed, head drooping and its stride turning into something that somehow resembled a shuffle without actually slowing it down any further.

"I guess we can't – pronounce your real name?" Steve asked, after he'd put on enough speed to catch up. Looked like, for all the doubts he'd had about the horse, _he_ was the one who was limiting their speed now.

Damnit. He thought he'd left that behind in Brooklyn.

The horse bobbed its head in a nod, then shook its head from side to side, and Steve hazarded another guess. "Or – you can't?" Maybe it really was a river dragon. Though if it was, then why was it now a horse? Surely a dragon could carry them just as well.

_"Secretariat, then, in honour of the most kick-ass horse to ever horse,"_ said Tony - only the first word aloud; for the rest, he continued on the comm.

"I didn't realize – you knew anything – about horses. Bit old-fashioned - for you," Steve said in an undertone, and louder, to the horse, "It's up to you."

The horse did that very strange weight-on-centre-leg shrug again, giving the impression of droopy resignation. Steve studied its long face and decided that it wasn't resignation at the name – it didn't look directed at him, but inward. Unhappy that it couldn't pronounce its own name? That might be evidence in favour of it actually being a dragon...

_"Money, dear boy,"_ said Tony, with a mocking – and terrible – English accent. _"I'm pretty sure I have a stable of derby winners somewhere – not sure, I might have donated them to the Boyscouts."_

The hesitation was minute, so much that it almost wasn't there. Have? _Had_. And if he hadn't donated them to the Boyscouts, then he certainly didn't have them anymore. That came with being declared dead. But with so much of the estate frozen or seized, Pepper didn't _have_ any anymore, either.

"That is a strange name," said Tripitaka doubtfully. "You should be called after your predecessor. I give you the name of Yulong." At this, the horse looked more cheerful.

Steve tamped down a feeling of instant dislike. The horse wanted to be called that? Fine.

_"Fuck it,"_ muttered Tony over the comm., so quietly that Steve wasn't sure he'd meant to send that.

"What is it?" Steve whispered, turning his face away so that his lips couldn't be read by either Tripitaka or Yulong.

"_Sorry,_" Tony said, contrite and recriminating – self-recriminating. _"I should have noticed before – idiot. It's not just the Norse. Myths and legends aren't so made up out here. I think we've fallen into one – or a re-enactment of one... if time is going strange, that might be the same as the real thing. I should have read up on Chinese legends before I left, clearly. Why the hell did I ever think this would be straight-forward?"_

"Optimist," Steve said, a little bit smugly. Tony could pretend to be a world-weary cynic until hell froze over; it hadn't taken more than a month of his company for Steve to realize that, hidden behind that facade, Tony's inner core of optimism shone brighter than the arc reactor. Tony believed that the world could _and would_ be better than it was.

Despite everything, the fact that he still _did_ made Steve's heart lighter.

_"Oh, shut up,"_ Tony said, but at least if he sounded annoyed at Steve he didn't sound so angry at himself.

He wasn't asking the obvious question, though. Steve grimaced. "Alright," he said, the sternness he'd been aiming for not quite making it through – the huffing and puffing sort of hindered it. "Tripitaka. Who was – your predecessor?"

Tripitaka's face wrinkled into a look of utter reverence, so deeply that for a moment he even loosened his grip from the saddle's pommel – although he immediately clung on again as soon as Yulong's rhythmic gait had him sway in the slightest. "I should not be surprised you do not know," he sighed pathetically. "Holy Hsüan Tsang, called Tripitaka when he ventured out into the world, was a priest of great holy power. Some thousand years ago or more he was charged by the Bodhisattva Kuan-Yin to venture forth to Heaven and there receive the scrolls of Transcendence and Persuasion for Good Will, to be brought back to the east and enlighten the souls of the ignorant folk who dwell here."

"He went to Maklu," said Steve.

"Yes, they are now known as one and the same," agreed Tripitaka, looking put out at being interrupted. "This was not the case in ancient times, as every child ought learn at school. You are very untutored." Steve focused hard on running, the placement of one foot in front of the other, the exact angle of his arms and depth of his breath; and it was not a long pause before Tripitaka continued, "To him he gathered four disciples. The first was the Great Sage Who Is Equal To Heaven, the Monkey-King, whose impatience and arrogance would have driven him from the path to enlightenment save the presence of the ring which I have placed upon you." Here he glanced at Tony.

The road wasn't interesting enough anymore. "Move on," Steve said harshly.

Tripitaka peered down at him from his perch atop Yulong, but continued. "The second was a gluttonous pig-spirit, whose name the Great Temples now cannot agree upon; and there are some who contend that the true name has been lost to time. The third was the river ogre Sandy, who was quiet and steadfast but had sinned greatly by slaying and eating travellers; and the fourth was Yulong, one of the sons of the Dragon King of the West Sea." Here he paused again. "Each of the Great Temples has an extensive version of the myth, but apart from these details, there is no unanimous agreement. All but the Temple of Great and Eternal Sorrow hold that Tripitaka was successful in his quest, bringing back the entirety of the knowledge that the Great Buddha had intended for him to spread, and that soon-after – a day, a year, or a decade – he vanished along with his disciples, to return to the west and become a Buddha himself." He shook his head sadly. "The lack of agreement among the Great Temples has been the cause of much disharmony throughout the centuries. But," and he brightened, "I shall learn the true story when we reach Maklu itself, and then it may be brought back to the east, and all shall be at peace again."

"That's why you're – doing this?"

Tripitaka nodded solemnly. "I am not very suited to the life of a warrior monk," he confessed. "I am no good at healing the physical body, although I have a very great knowledge of scripture and am an excellent guide."

_Like hell you are,_ Steve thought. And, hell – Loki had been claiming he'd come to 'free' them. God save humanity from nutso aliens like him and Tripitaka.

"But without physical might to force wisdom upon them, no ruler is willing to heed mere _words_ from a lowly monk; the greatest sages of the Great Temples have forgotten their mandate and now maintain their power through the cruel use of force. I was near to despair when Holy Kuan-Yin appeared to me in a dream, and commanded me to journey west! And at my lowest point, she led you to me – and then this fine horse. So I shall keep faith and not despair. Surely the mandate of Heaven is upon us!"

Right – Steve never heard _that_ one before. A champion of peace and diplomacy – except when it came to Tripitaka's own goals. A 'small' injustice could be excused in the name of a higher righteousness. No one would listen to him? Better _make_ them, then – by pain or by fear, it all worked out the same.

They ran on in silence for a while after, until Tripitaka, apparently feeling that he needed to 'educate' his disciples, began to lecture on the basic tenets of Buddhism – the version practiced in this world, at least. It was too much of an effort to try to listen to him without snapping at him to shut up, shut _up_, so despite knowing that he ought to be looking for insight into Tripitaka's mind, Steve ended up tuning him out, turning his thoughts inward.

Gentle strains of jazz music began echoing from his comm., and Steve glanced over at Tony, lips twitching. The facemask showed no signs of amusement, of course, but the volume increased slightly.


	4. The Demon Mountains

"...to stop..."

"..._Steve..."_

_"...Steve... listening?..."_

"Steve, hey, time to stop," said Tony, faceplate retracted for the first time in –

Steve blinked.

He didn't know how long it had been.

The lack of forward motion staggered him and he nearly fell. No, that was the exhaustion. How long - ? He couldn't think. Adrenaline made a weak attempt at waking him and was turned back. But they weren't in friendly territory – he couldn't just drop off –

"It's safe now," said Tony, and Steve felt all his muscles turning to water. In some dim recess of his mind, a protest was shouted – _Tony didn't have the best judgement_ – but it was too small to fight the fatigue crawling over him, dragging him down. "Come on, Shadowfax, you too – time to get off the damn road – "

An armoured gauntlet pulled Steve along by the arm – half propping him up. Smooth stone changed to uneven dirt, and Steve stumbled. Then the world tilted, the dirt growing too close, too fast, as Tony exclaimed, "Ack!" and –

Steve slept.

* * *

He woke up ravenously hungry.

"_Jesus-fucking-finally,"_ said Tony – voiced filtered and metallic though the suit – he was sitting propped up against a rock.

Steve sat up shoving aside the blanket that somebody – probably Tony – had laid out over him. There was another blanket laid out under him, too. Wherever they were, they were not on the road anymore. Squat trees extended their branches out partway over the small clearing, which didn't manage to be so much 'flat' as 'level in places'. Around them, hills rose up, and some ways in the distance, mountains towered over them balefully. A lump of blankets near the bottom of the clearing was probably Tripitaka; and Yulong was laying down next to him, six legs all akimbo, apparently asleep as well.

Trying to remember what had happened was like snatching at a fading dream. They'd been on a path toward the mountains – Tripitaka had been growing increasingly nervous and fretful, as it was in mountains like these where he'd been attacked previously, and he claimed to have an 'even worse' feeling about these ones. It hadn't helped that Tripitaka had obviously been in need of sleep by then, yet had refused to try sleeping in the saddle, despite Yulong's vigorous nod to the question of whether or not he could keep a rider in the saddle all on his own.

They had reached the base of the mountains and the road had begun to incline steeper and steeper, and then...?

Steve shook his head, and the emptiness in his stomach made everything else spin. "Food?" he managed hopefully.

_"Here,"_ said Tony, tossing over a bag of something that proved to be dry fruit. Apples, maybe – Steve barely tasted it as he wolfed it down. A package of thick travel-bread landed in his lap next – Yulong's saddlebags had been full of the stuff when Steve had checked them. That had been... less than twelve hours ago, as far as he could remember: but from the way his stomach was growling, probably a lot longer than that.

Steve nearly gave himself a case of the hiccups polishing it off, and managed to force himself to slow long enough to properly chew the dried meat that Tony tossed him next. Then he levered himself to his feet, and by the time he'd made it over to the edge of clearing so that he could take care of business, he was no longer staggering. Sleep-muddle cleared from his mind, allowing him to remember the events of the day before in piercing clarity: but still nothing after they'd entered those mountains.

He zipped up and turned back. "What happened?"

_"Can it wait?"_ Tony sounded grumpy.

No, not grumpy. Exhausted.

Tony didn't need sleep. Steve was over at his side in an instant. "Are you okay?" Wrong question to ask, he realized immediately –

_"I'm fine, just could use some shut-eye,"_ said Tony, and flipped up the faceplate. Beneath it, he looked horrible – eyes bruised and bloodshot from lack of sleep, skin sallow, hair greasy – not that Steve was feeling like a paragon of freshness, either – but Tony looked completely run-down. What had _happened_ in those mountains? "Swear, Steve, I'm not – " he sentence was cut off as he yawned enormously, " – injured. You can keep watch now?"

The last words were almost a mumble – and these symptoms Steve recognized anywhere, even if he'd never specifically seen them in Tony before: he was crashing, and hard.

"I can. Get some rest," Steve assured him, patting one armoured knee.

Tony's eyes were almost closed by the end of Steve's sentence, but then faceplate closed off without hesitation, cutting Steve off from any visible way of monitoring him. Whether or not Steve was keeping the watch, apparently Tony didn't feel comfortable enough to sleep with the faceplate off – but the armour didn't even let Steve see if Tony was still breathing. He looked like a discarded, inanimate toy, a tin soldier made for some giant child.

Heck, somewhere out in the multiverse there probably was a race of giants who gave human-sized dolls to their kids.

What if he –

_For God's sake, Steve Rogers, he is not going to choke and die in his sleep._

Steve made himself do a thorough check of the perimeter instead. The mountains didn't loom quite so alarmingly at second glance; they just looked like mountains. The road, he discovered, ran past on the other side of a small rise some fifty feet away, but looking up and down it he couldn't see any other travellers from the offered vantage point. Nor did it seem like their chosen clearing was a usual traveller's stop; there was no discarded litter, or signs of other human use, such as old fire pits. It was possible that travellers in this world were just much more environmentally conscious, though – or much more stealthy.

Yulong stirred briefly as Steve went over to check the packs – Tony must have taken them off of him, but apparently he hadn't known what to do with them after that other than stack them in a haphazard pile. Steve confirmed that the huddled pile of blankets really _did_ contain Tripitaka – part of his bald head was visible at one end, a sandaled foot sticking out of the other – and told the dragon horse, "I got watch. Go back to sleep." Then he carried the saddlebags closer to Tony's rock and set himself to going through them seriously.

Yesterday – if it had been yesterday – they'd only paused long enough to get a rough idea of whether they had enough food to last a few days. Steve had planned to do a more thorough check when they stopped, because he at least would need rest at some point, and probably Yulong would as well – a suspicion now borne out by fact. But why did Tony? Under the curse, Tony had gone without sleep for six months without ever getting tired –

Oh, God. How long had they been in those mountains?

_Oh, God._

No. _No. _He needed to not think about that. If he wanted an answer, he'd need to wake Tony – he could – but there was no point in getting the answer right now. There was nothing he could do about it.

How much time had passed?

_Don't think._

Steve forced himself to focus on inventorying, unpacking and repacking to fit it all back in – whoever had packed the original bags was a master at fitting things into as small a space as possible, and it was a mercy to need to put attention into repacking if he did want to make it all fit again. He did find a pouch of something that could probably be considered 'slates', or some other currency, which was good. There wasn't much food left – it looked like they'd spent at least two or three days in the mountains. But there was _some_. Did that mean they hadn't –

_No. Stop thinking of the worst case scenario, damnit._ Leo had taught him breathing exercises – he made use of them, and shoved everything but the immediate present away.

When he finished with the packing he checked the perimeter again, setting it wider, this time. He dug a latrine, patrolled again, gathered firewood and started a small, smokeless fire, patrolled again, and then found himself forced to interrupt a very confused Tripitaka, who had woken up about one terrified second away from mumbling that damned mantra of his.

"Hey – HEY!" said Steve, keeping his hand firmly over Tripitaka's mouth, pressing him into the ground – or rather, the blankets, because despite what Tripitaka had done to him Tony had apparently still been kind enough to move him onto a blanket. "We're safe here. I'm going to let you go, and you are _not_ going to say one damn word that would hurt Tony. You understand?"

Tripitaka nodded as best he could – Steve knew he had a grip like iron when he wanted – and Steve released him, slowly, ready to grab him again if need be. But Tripitaka instead sat up and curled against Yulong's side, pulling one of the blankets tightly around him. The dragon horse wuffled softly at him, and then went back to sleep.

"There were terrible things," stammered Tripitaka, tears filling his eyes. "Terrible. But I don't know what they were!"

A memory of shadow stirred at his words; Steve shuddered. "Me neither," he admitted. "But they're gone now. We're out."

"Oh... I need to meditate... I have lost my inner calm," Tripitaka mumbled. Steve restrained a snort. From all he'd seen of Tripitaka so far, the man hadn't had much inner calm to lose – but if he thought meditation could calm him down, Steve was all for it. At least it would keep him quiet.

Tripitaka being awake confined him to the clearing for the next few hours until Tony woke, though – there was no way he was going to leave Tripitaka alone for a moment with Tony, even if Tripitaka hadn't been so twitchy. He tried meditation himself – Leo had taught him how – but it was far more difficult than usual. When the armour suddenly moved, forward and then to standing – and _silently_ – Steve nearly jumped out of his skin.

He'd gotten used to the sounds of the armour, and it had seemed like this version wasn't much different in that respect – had Tony just been tossing in those sounds for Steve's own ease of mind?

"Tripitaka, stay here," Steve ordered, getting up as well.

"But – what if a monster attacks me?"

"Yulong'll keep an eye on you," Steve said, exchanging a glance with the dragon horse, who bobbed his head in acknowledgement before climbing to all six of his feet and trotting over to chew on some of the bushes at the edge of the clearing. "Tony, c'mon."

_"Ohgod, I need coffee,"_ Tony muttered over the comm., but he followed.

When they were out of immediate earshot, Steve asked, more plaintively than he would have liked, "What happened?"

_"Honest to god, not entirely sure,"_ Tony said, crossing his arms over his chest. Defensive. This conversation was off to a great start.

"Take a stab at it anyway. How long were we in those mountains?"

_"Five days, total_. _Four-point-eight-two_, if you want to be really precise." The faceplate melted away as Tony spoke, giving Steve a look at him – Tony's eyes were still somewhat bruised, but they were no longer bloodshot and half-dizzy with exhaustion. And he was giving Steve a concerned look in return. "Not that long, Steve."

Steve found himself crossing his own arms – a defensive tic. Damnit, now they were both doing it. He made himself drop his arms back to his sides. "Thanks."

"Right. Well." Tony paused uncomfortably. "We got into the mountains. They looked completely normal to me – just like the ones we first landed in. But you and Tripitaka, you kept seeing shadows or something, and then you stopped paying attention... at all. I don't know what you saw. You weren't... there. Catatonic – I could sort of force you to eat, but it was a chore. At least you kept running. After a couple hours, it was pretty obvious we were being watched, and it wasn't friendly. Shadows. Big shapes." He grimaced. "They closed off behind us, so going back wasn't the best of ideas."

"Dragons are big and have lots of teeth to boot, but they can be helpful," Steve pointed out, feeling strange at having to say it. Tony had been the first guy to take to the Hulk.

"Something was mind-whammying you, I made a judgement call."

"Fair enough." Steve sighed. "At least it's behind us. We're going to need more supplies, though."

"I figured after you woke up I could scout for a village up ahead," Tony shrugged.

"Will that work? I thought things outside the road didn't line up with what's on it." Although he'd found the city earlier... but they'd been flying, then. If they'd stayed on the road, would they have come across it eventually? Or missed it altogether?

"Ehh... yes and no," Tony hedged. His eyes grew darker and he looked down, shamefaced. "I fucked up back there."

That was unfair. "You got us all out safe," Steve pointed out in surprise.

"I should've gotten you out earlier." Tony blew out an explosive sigh. "I tried using the roller-skates without proper testing."

"Um." The image of Yulong on roller-skates was... something, alright.

"It didn't work. Actually it made it take longer, and I'm lucky we didn't wind up off the road entirely. I fucking hate sentient – " Tony visibly flailed for a word, and settled on, "world-builders. There's no reason that _walking_ should be any different than driving a damn car down the thing, but somebody must have wanted to make a joke about it being the _journey_ that matters." He looked entirely unamused by this.

World-builders. Gods – little-case 'g', though possibly, just possibly, it might directly be God; but God was in everything and it usually made little sense to ascribe things to Him in mundane terms. If this was the same – then little-g gods. "You're saying no short-cuts."

"Essentially," Tony agreed, and grimaced. "It's a bit more complicated than that, but – yeah. Sorry. I know better than to let other people use untested shit. I should've taken more time to sort through all the scans before trying it. I – panicked." The last word was almost a mutter.

"You kept it together and you got us out," Steve said firmly. "You were operating under pressure and with limited information – you did fine. Great, actually." Give credit where credit was due – he couldn't even remember what had happened, but the mountains felt distinctly ominous, and Tony had managed to get them all out alive and unharmed.

But if Tony couldn't build them a vehicle... damn. It felt like they had been gone only a day, but really it had been almost a week. How much longer would the journey take by foot? It could be weeks, months, _years_. And if they were gone too long, they might not have anything to come back to – when Steve had gone world-hopping, time had passed at the same rate. Although, Tony had said that when he'd fallen through the portal, he'd been gone for months – yet it had been an instant in their world.

Tony was still looking apologetic, though – worried. But then, to him – what had it been like, nightmares looming at the edge of sight and everyone else acting like mindless –

- zombies?

"You okay?" Steve asked him, noting the way that Tony's eyes slid away ever so slightly. "You, uh – still look tired."

"And I shouldn't be," Tony said, dipping his head. It hadn't been what Steve had meant – but it was a valid concern. "I know. And no, no idea why – ah, bad phrase. Plenty of _ideas_ why, and no firm facts throw any of them out. It could be this world, it could be this _place,_ specifically. Maybe those things back in the mountains – maybe some other things. Hell, maybe extremis interferes with the curse." He chuckled, low in his throat. "I haven't been re-embodied long enough to know."

"We'll figure it out."

"We?" Tony's lips quirked down and his eyes went opaque; Steve didn't have a clue what he was thinking. "Yeah, guess so."

* * *

"In times past, emperors who had lost their way and forgotten the Mandate of Heaven sought to extend their borders beyond those rightfully granted to civilization," said Tripitaka. Steve half-listened, half-ignored him; it was quickly becoming habit. The sun was beating down on them from overhead, and although the suit Tony had made for him breathed like a dream, Steve would be sweating even if he stripped completely naked.

"They expanded the empire far beyond, attempting to tame the untameable lands. They did not seek to explore and learn, but to conquer and educate creatures long placed beyond the reach of reason and logic." Tripitaka sighed mournfully. "And so now it is that the Great Empire contains expanses beyond what mortals may patrol, and there are regions such as those mountains to plague all travellers and tax-collectors. But my namesake faced these dangers bravely and overcame them. I am a sad imitation, I know. You did very well to keep us safe, my disciple."

It took a second to process that Tripitaka was talking _to Tony_, and then –

"Shut up," said Steve, reaching out and grabbing one of Yulong's packs without thinking; fortunately, Yulong immediately stopped in his tracks, hooves almost skidding across the stone as he did, as otherwise Steve would have been yanked off his feet. Tony reacted slower and stopped further away. "Shut up. You don't call him that. He isn't your disciple. We're doing you a favour, but you do _not_ talk to him like that."

Tripitaka was very pale as he looked down at Steve. But he was looking _down_ at Steve – Yulong shied away, dancing sideways, and it was as good as a declaration of where his loyalties lay.

"I'm not going to be a coward," Tripitaka said, his voice higher-pitched but still determined. "I'm not going to dishonour my namesake. Tony Stark did well; I am showing him respect. _You_ could stand to learn some."

"I have plenty of respect for people who aren't torturers."

_"Steve, shut _up,"said Tony, but it was too late.

"Most ignorant of souls are those with no wish to learn," said Tripitaka. "_I_ may not be able to force anyone to learn, but Holy Kuan-Yin has granted me the favour of a Bodhisattva; if I must use it, then I must. If you love your friend, you will learn. If he doesn't, perhaps you should reconsider your choice in friends." He directed this last to Tony, and he had the gall to sound regretful.

"Honest to god, I think I'd rather die," said Tony, the helmet dissolving around his head. All the lines of his forty-something years had returned, alien on his too-youthful face; the pale gold circlet winked bright in the sunlight. "But since I'd rather not spend the rest of my life screaming and _then_ die, let's just, uh, not overreact – y'know, a better way to teach people is talking with them, it's the – in thing, these days..."

_Don't_, Steve chanted to himself, all his self-restraint teetering on the edge of breaking. He wanted to _end _Tripitaka, raise his shield and prevent him from ever threatening anyone again – but he couldn't. Helplessness seared at him like acid, an almost physical pain, but Steve knew it was nothing, _nothing_ compared to what would happen to Tony if he couldn't keep his damn mouth _shut._

"One may speak to a stone from dawn to dusk, and not a word shall it comprehend," said Tripitaka, looking at Steve.

"I'm not a rock," Steve said, his words coming out stilted. _Don't._ _Don't slip_. "I – apologize. We should keep moving."

"Mhmph," said Tripitaka, still looking put out. Petulant. Watching him didn't keep Steve from seeing Tony's expression flash to a mix of disappointment and relief, before he blanked it out and the helmet flashed over his head again.

It was harder to lend an ear to Tripitaka after that. He wanted to just shut the odious monk out entirely – but if he missed some hidden threat in Tripitaka's 'lessons', what then? It was Steve's who had insisted on helping Tripitaka in the first place – he hadn't seen any threat then. He couldn't regret the instinct to help a stranger in need, but he could sure as hell regret not being able to tell that Tripitaka _wasn't_.

The road wound slowly down out of the hilly country, and into flatter lands; Steve let the anger carry him, putting the familiar rage to familiar use. Anger at himself. Anger at being helpless in the face of a bully. He took it out against the road, because he couldn't stop Tripitaka, and it wasn't the face he wanted to present to the world – it wasn't what he wanted to be, not even for an instant... and they were nearing other people. Cultivated land began to replace the flats and irrigation ditches now bordered the road. But there appeared to not be a single other soul _present_, until far off in the distance Steve's eyes caught movement; slowly, he managed to pick out a figure through the heat haze. Small, probably human-ish, carrying something.

_"Oo-kay, that looks unfriendly,"_ muttered Tony on the comm.

"What are you seeing?"

_"Way too many arms. And teeth. In places teeth should not be. Jesus, I should have downloaded some Lovecraft, too."_

"Could be friendly."

"It is very impolite to have a one-sided conversation," Tripitaka said peevishly, and Steve bit down on his tongue until he tasted copper.

"It's faster, and might be necessary to protect you," he gritted out, feeling no remorse about the lies – although they could be true in some cases. It accomplished the goal of getting Tripitaka to stop protesting, which was all Steve really cared about.

They drew closer, Yulong falling behind by Steve's signal. "Could be friendly anyway," Steve reminded Tony. "We're not here to pick a fight."

_"Sure."_ Tony didn't bother to hide his skepticism.

But as they drew closer, the wavering shape resolved into the form of an ordinary-looking woman – no extra arms or teeth to be seen. She was dressed in a style that, though unfamiliar, looked like it was probably pretty common for the region – sandals, wide-brimmed hat, clothing that looked to be made from coarse-woven but sturdy cloth. The thing she was carrying turned out to be a large, shallow basket filled with – straw? Reeds? Something like that; what exactly it was, Steve wasn't sure, but it was hardly threatening. Nothing about her did. "Your sensors functioning right?" Steve asked, because Tony hadn't sounded like he was just kidding.

_"Diagnostics coming up green,"_ Tony reported after a moment.

"There's nothing about her that looks unusual to me."

_"Um. _Her?" asked Tony, and then part of the faceplate melted away, revealing his eyes for just a second before it returned to normal. _"Not sure how you get 'her' out of _that_."_

"Tony, she's a normal-looking woman," Steve said, worry ratcheting up.

They were near enough now that they began to slow their own pace. He wondered if they might just pass on the road – she to her side, they to theirs – and avoid any sort of confrontation entirely; but the looks she was giving them were wide-eyed, and she pushed back her hat a bit, openly staring.

_"Christ on a popsicle stick,"_ Tony muttered in Steve's ear, and that was the other half of it.

"Good afternoon, travellers," the woman called when she was perhaps twenty feet away, and Steve remembered – _please let it not be too late –_the declaration.

"Good afternoon," he called back. "I'm Steve Rogers and this is Tony Stark – "

_"Are you insane?"_ Tony demanded.

" – and behind us are Tripitaka and Yulong. We're just passing through, although if there's a town nearby we could buy supplies at, we'd like to." They all came to a halt, as if by mutual agreement, at about ten feet apart.

Tony was swearing in his ear, vicious and unsurprisingly inventive, and Steve would have responded if he'd had the same luxury of being able to say whatever he wanted and only be heard by those he intended to hear it. Since that wasn't the case, he settled for shooting Tony a look – hopefully not one that would appear conspiratorial or threatening to the woman.

"I am Jun, and my village is not far beyond," the woman introduced herself. "Would you like me to walk back with you and introduce you?"

_"I don't think so,"_ Tony said, before Steve could say, 'Yes, thank you.' The armour's voice was always harder than Tony's normal speaking voice, but this was unusually curt even so. Steve barely concealed a flinch of surprise.

"You should approach it cautiously, then," Jun warned. "We see many travellers upon the road, but you must have come farther than any of them, to wear such strange clothing." Her expression brimmed with curiosity.

"Pretty far," Steve agreed. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tony's head turn toward him, ever so slightly and back.

"Then fair fortune to you. Perhaps I shall see you this evening," Jun said, bowing her head in what seemed like some sort of farewell gesture. She began to step to one side, and collapsed with a gaping hole burned through her chest, large enough to reveal the white of the road beneath her.

Steve ducked and spun away, shouting, "Tony, move!" Awareness prickled on his skin; he was horribly aware of just how exposed they were on the road as he scanned for their attacker, or attackers – and then his brain caught up to his reflexes, figured out the jarring half-familiarity of the sound, processed that the split-second beam of light hadn't originated from _behind_ Tony.

Tony had upgraded his repulsors, some back portion of Steve's brain catalogued. He was too used to hearing the whine of them charging, to having that split-second warning that Tony was about to act; he hadn't immediately realized, despite the not-so-different sound of them actually firing, that it had been Tony who had killed her.

Tony still had his hand raised, the repulsor lens in his palm glowing faintly; he cocked his head to one side, and said, _"Okay, that was easier than I expected."_

"Tony, _what the hell?"_

_"Usually otherworldly creatures are tougher,"_ Tony said, like that explained _anything at all –_

"She wasn't a threat, she was being helpful – she was completely harmless," Steve said, horrified. He took a few steps forward and knelt down at Jun's side, trying not to gag from the stench of burned flesh. The last time he'd smelled this – _no, God damn you, Tony. No. _Her final expression was eyes-wide-open shock – she probably hadn't even had time to realize what had happened to her.

_"She was threatening to _eat_ you!"_

Steve paused. Tony being paranoid and metaphoric, or was that meant to be literal? "Tony, that is not what was going on."

_"It was pretty damn explicit, Steve – "_

" – then we weren't hearing the same conversation. We were seeing different things before, too." Steve gestured at him. "Play it back."

The sound quality of the recording was perfect – the only reason that the armour's voice was so different from Tony's was that he wanted it to be. Jun's voice was exactly the same, as if the clock had been rewound by two minutes and they were having the conversation over again, except it was recording-Steve replying in his place.

"That's the same thing I heard the first time," Steve said grimly. He looked back down at Jun, reached out, and gently closed her eyes.

_"Then you're still hearing wrong, and I'd think the lack of an obvious – what are you doing?"_

"I'm trying to show her some damn respect," Steve snapped.

"_Steve – there's nothing there."_ Tony walked slowly toward him, placing his feet without caution –

"Stop – " Steve tried to warn him, but when Tony did, he set his foot down just far enough to clip the fingers of Jun's sprawled out arm. The boot crushed them without resistance.

Hooves clattered against the road; Steve looked up and saw Yulong and Tripitaka heading toward them.

_"There's no body, I shot her and she vanished,"_ said Tony. _"What the hell are you seeing?"_

"Oh my," said Tripitaka faintly as Yulong trotted up and pulled to a halt, whinnying. "What happened?"

"What do you see?" Steve asked him.

"That you have slain this young woman with your weapon of light," Tripitaka said. He looked nauseous. "Why?"

_"Because she was about to bite Steve's head off."_

"We're seeing different things." Steve shook his head. "Which of us is right?" He had to stand, after that; he couldn't kneel by Jun's corpse and say such a thing. It was like making a mockery of it.

"I see a dead woman," said Tripitaka. Yulong nodded.

Steve winced. He didn't want to agree with Tripitaka, but... "Tony?"

_"You were the ones affected by the mountains, not me,"_ Tony countered flatly. Of course, the armour's voice was always pretty flat, but even so Steve thought he would have sounded the same with the faceplate up. If the mountains were even related – they'd left them behind hours ago, and in this place, that could mean a lot.

"We got – " he searched for a word, " – knocked out or something. You're the only one who _saw_ anything in there. Shadows."

Tony was silent for a moment. _"Things that didn't want to be seen. I can think of a hell of a lot of reasons why something like _that_ thing wouldn't want to be seen – why it'd hide as a shadow, or a woman. An illusion that works on you..."_

"But if it was something aimed at us, you should have – sensor readings or something, right? So you could get an idea of what we're seeing." He glanced at Tripitaka and lowered his voice to sub-audible, so that nobody without enhanced hearing or sensitive microphones could have picked him up. "If you're hallucinating again..."

_"Granted that any complex system can have a breakdown, but this isn't a relapse, Steve,"_ Tony replied in kind over the comm.

"Then give me another explanation!" Steve closed his eyes, scrunching them up to relieve a headache that he knew wasn't real, even if the tension sure was.

"No matter what you saw, you can't just go around killing people," said Tripitaka from his high perch. "And that's a person."

_"There is _nothing there!_"_

Tripitaka took a nervous grip on the saddle pommel and looked directly at Steve. "Do not attempt to interfere," he warned.

"NO – " it was too late; Tripitaka had already started his mumbling chant and Tony collapsed beside Jun's corpse. His screams were tiny, locked away inside the armour, but Steve could hear them even through it – Steve pulled Tripitaka off of Yulong's back before the horse could shy away, and jammed his gloved hand between the monk's teeth, enough to hold down his tongue.

Tony's screaming didn't stop. Tripitaka looked shocked, and then frightened, and then narrowed his eyes; his jaw kept moving, very slightly, twitches so small that Steve couldn't stop him – and Tony's screams exploded into a shocking loudness that had Steve taking his eyes off of Tripitaka to look over his shoulder. The armour half-collapsed off of Tony, parts of it melting away almost uncertainly; metal rained to the white road, leaving him naked. " – off, off, off," Tony was choking out, his eyes wild and staring into nothing, "_No,_ please, off, _getitoff_!" He clawed at his head, opening bloody furrows at him temples.

If Steve tried anything else to stop Tripitaka, he was pretty sure he'd kill him. So he shoved Tripitaka away instead – strongly enough to send Tripitaka sprawling on the road, not strongly enough to injure him – and lunged for Tony, grabbing at his wrists. Half-choking on his own screams, Tony didn't seem to register that it was Steve – he fought back, thrashing against the hold so much that Steve had to haul him up, for fear he'd brain himself on the stone.

Tripitaka's near-silent mumble stopped, and Tony went limp.

"Don't do it again," said Tripitaka, and his words were small and petty and _evil_ over the sound of Tony sobbing for breath. He stared down at them, an uncomfortable expression on his face, like he fucking _cared_ – Steve grit his teeth so hard he thought, for a moment, he might have cracked one.

_"_Oh god fuck no I swear I won't," Tony mumbled, all in one breath, and tugged weakly at his arms; Steve let him go instantly. Tripitaka nodded once, and looked to Jun's body. One of Tony's bare feet was now poking her in the thigh – and unlike when Tony was wearing the boots, this time his foot had clearly met resistance. Steve didn't say anything.

"She needs _some _sort of funeral," Tripitaka said at last. "That I can provide. Carry her over to the side of the road, Steve. We can bury her there."

Beside the ditch. Jun had a village – she probably had friends, family. They should be taking her body back to them. Perhaps they'd be arrested and tried for murder – Tony was guilty of it. If it wasn't _them_ hallucinating – but how could it be, all three of them, awake and aware? That was different from being put to sleep by a spell. If there was an illusion that they could see, then Tony should still have been able to _detect_ it, somehow.

Extremis had broken the mind of every single other person who had taken it – that Tony had gotten off with no ill effects... it had seemed too good to be true.

If Tony'd relapsed – he'd need help. Care. And oversight. Not Tripitaka's godforsaken idea of punishment. He couldn't risk trapping Tony in that – not when it was his fault that they'd stopped and helped Tripitaka in the first place. And that was ignoring the multitudes of people depending on Tony to fabricate a cure – or at least, some way to shut extremis down.

But they couldn't just leave Jun's body out here to rot. It _would _rot swiftly, in this heat and humidity.

The fallen pieces of the armour twitched, and began reassembling on Tony's body. "Go," he muttered thickly. "Do whatever you... think you need to do."

Steve closed his eyes, and took a breath, doing his damndest to keep himself from reaching out to his friend. When he opened them again, Tony was watching him warily – almost flinching back at the smallest movement.

That wasn't fair – and what a damned selfish thing to think. Steve bit his tongue. None of this was fair.

The dirt beside the road was soft and easy to move. He made the grave as deep as he could without letting it get below the waterline of the nearest trench, and packed the dirt overtop of her body as tight as he could manage; there was no easy source of rocks nearby he could use to make something more secure. But these were cultivated lands – hopefully there wouldn't be predators digging around. Although that brought to mind that these _were_ cultivated lands, despite the lack of houses... so where were the people?

He retreated back to the road, and Tony, not watching while Tripitaka performed whatever rites over the grave that he felt appropriate. "Are there any other people or... other things showing up on your sensors?" he asked Tony quietly.

There was no hesitation before the reply. _"No."_

"These fields don't look abandoned." Granted, none of them had anything growing in them at the moment, but the corners were neat and straight, and there weren't any weeds, either. Wasn't that a thing that farmers did – leave fields fallow for a bit, a chance to... rest? He wasn't sure. "There oughtta be people around here somewhere."

_"Maybe they were all eaten,"_ Tony said curtly, and Steve looked away.

After another twenty minutes of travel, though, they finally started seeing signs of people – the occasional small shack, then the occasional house and sometimes workers far off in the fields. Sometimes, one would occasionally look up and stare at them as they passed, but none approached any closer to the road. The fields here were different – some were full of green crops, some were flooded, and the water level in the ditches varied so much that there had to be some sort of weirdness going on, because otherwise the water certainly should have been moving. Instead it looked almost stagnant.

"Can you see those people?" Steve asked Tony quietly.

_"Three o'clock, three hundred forty metres; eleven o'clock, eight hundred twelve meters; eight o'clock, four hundred ninety-one meters,"_ Tony listed off. There had been others, but – Steve glanced back. He couldn't see them anymore. But these ones, at least, they could both see.

Another ten minutes later, they finally found the village. Half of it seemed to be built of stone, and the other half from some sort of plant growing up over all the buildings, forming rooftops and the occasional second story. There were more decorations on display, here, and more people about: most dressed as farmers, but others in fancier clothing, with more colour and life to them. It was larger than the village they'd come across Tripitaka in, and they were in luck – there even seemed to be some sort of marketplace currently set up in the middle of the village, centered around an elaborately carved, beautiful stone fountain.

"I must go present my passport to the local authorities," said Tripitaka, making to climb down from Yulong's back; Steve caught him before he could face-plant, and set him on his feet as quickly as possible, cursing himself all the while. "Oh. Er, thank you. You should go buy supplies – as a monk, I cannot barter."

"And what do we do if the local authorities want _our_ passports?" Steve asked pointedly.

"State who you are and that you travel with me," Tripitaka said, frowning at Steve like this was the most obvious thing in the world and Steve clearly should have known it.

"Right," said Steve slowly. Letting Tripitaka out of his sight felt like a bad idea – but, damnit, Tripitaka was the one who'd wanted to come along with them in the first place; he wasn't going to run off on them. And even if he _did_ decide to – they could keep going just fine. Hopefully. Unless Tripitaka decided to be vengeful.

_"Come on, Cap, I can't haggle worth a damn,"_ Tony muttered over the comm, and, well, that settled it.

Of course, it would've been a lot easier to haggle if he'd had any idea of how much his money was worth. Or if he could understand the signs – the language might sound like English, but it sure wasn't written anything like it. The elaborate characters looked like they'd have been at home on the signs he'd seen in Shenzhen.

"Fresh fruit?" one stall owner asked him, though none of the things on her table were anything that Steve could identify. Hopefully none of them would be poisonous – although he was probably a little late to be worrying about poisonous alien food. "Only five half-slates each, and they are quite delicious. Picked just this morning!"

"Uh, not at the moment," he told her awkwardly, not dimming her salesperson's smile. "I'll be back later." He could pick out the haggling that others were doing elsewhere – though it was difficult; people here seemed to speak much more rapid-fire when they got down to business. Fresh fruit was going to be a luxury, though: if they weren't guaranteed to come across villages often, then they needed supplies that would keep.

_"Heads up, Steve, we got trouble,"_ Tony's voice pulled him away from eavesdropping on one man haggling with another selling some sort of nuts._"Take a look – five o'clock, approaching the government building." _Tony himself was standing facing the same direction as Steve, but given his sensors, that was deceptive.

There were enough people around to cover his own movements a bit – even though he stood a good half-head taller than most of them – and he took advantage of that to turn casually. The ornamented building that Tripitaka had made his way into had the occasional person passing in and out, and more people using the street before it to make their way to and from the market, but he didn't see anybody who stood out. "What is it?"

_"You don't see it. Of course you don't see it."_ Tony shook his head and began walking with a purposeful stride toward the building, sending other market-goers hurrying out of his way, and doubling the number of open stares they were getting. _"It's the same creature – same number of tentacles, same number of goddamned _teeth_ – I am not hallucinating this."_

"No lethal force," said Steve, catching up to him and putting a hand on his arm; Tony shook it off and kept walking, leaving Steve little choice but to follow. "Don't start a fight here, Tony." For one, he might kill (another) innocent person. For another, these people might all look like farmers or merchants, but there was no guarantee that they didn't have police or soldiers. And on top of that, there was what Tripitaka might do to Tony.

_"Hey, I wish I could be all for it eating Tripitaka, but sadly that doesn't seem like it'd work out well for me,"_ Tony said tightly. They reached the edge of the market, and Steve could tell now by Tony's determined focus which person he thought the monster was: a young woman coming up the road with a covered basket focused on her head. Another young woman – for a moment, the world tipped and everything felt inevitable.

No. Steve shook his head and planted himself in front of Tony, one hand on the chestplate, ready to try physically holding him back – it wouldn't actually work, but he had to get through to Tony somehow. "You can't do this, Tony. There is no threat here – even if you're seeing something that looks monstrous, it's not doing anything. _She's_ not doing anything."

Of course, Tripitaka stepped out of the building at that exact second.

Steve caught sight of him out of the corner of his eye; Tony, facing that direction – and probably with cameras trained on that doorway anyway – shoved Steve's arm aside hard enough to knock him off balance, and took a running leap, assisted by a flare from his boot repulsors, that took him over Tripitaka's head to land firmly between him and the woman. _"Back off,"_ he threatened.

"What?" the startled woman asked, nearly dropping her basket. She took one hand off of it, outstretching it placating.

"What?" said Tripitaka at the same time, as Steve, lunging forward, pulled Tripitaka behind him.

"Go back inside," he snapped at Tripitaka.

_"Feel free to go away and stop _stalking_ us anytime,"_ Tony snarled in the Iron Man's foreboding voice.

The woman shrunk backward. "I don't mean you any harm – I don't know who you are, I'm just going to market – "

"Tony, for God's sake – " Steve grabbed at Tony's shoulder and tried to step in front of him, but Tony just stepped to the side.

_"What the hell are you?"_

"I'm just a farmer – I sell goods here every market day, any can vouch for me – " the woman babbled.

"Has he gone mad again?" asked Tripitaka.

Tony slid one foot forward, into better combat stance; Steve was helpless to keep him from moving, like he was just a ninety-pound weakling again. _"Over my dead body."_

"And over mine, you're not killing her," Steve ordered him.

"Do not do this, Tony," said Tripitaka, and Tony flinched, turning his head back to look at the monk.

_"Stay out of this, Jim Jones, I'm trying to save your life."_

The woman's voice was trembling; Steve couldn't see her, couldn't take his eyes off of Tony to turn his heard and look, but he'd have been willing to bet that the rest of her was shaking, too. "I don't understand – why am I in trouble?"

"Tony – "

_"They'll believe me when I – "_ Steve was suddenly supporting Tony's weight; he could hear Tony screaming inside the armour again, too faintly, and Tripitaka's mumbling, almost as faint.

He lowered Tony to the ground and snarled up at Tripitaka, "Stop!"

Tripitaka paused, and asked Tony sternly, "Will you stop attacking people? I shall have to punish you further each time you try."

"Can I – pass by you? I'm late," the woman asked Steve in a small voice.

_"Too bad for you – I'm not exactly – obedient,"_ Tony grit out, and exploded into motion.

It caught Steve off guard. He'd been prepared for Tony to move, but he hadn't expected how– the nanite-made armour was strong, fast, but he hadn't expected _how_ fast when applied against himself... or rather, he wasn't expecting how much extremis must have enhanced Tony's reaction times, because whenever they'd sparred before, Tony's greatest weakness had always been that he was an un-enhanced human being inside the suit; he had _good_ reflexes, but Steve's were superhuman.

Now, apparently, so were Tony's. He twisted over, pulling from Steve's grasp, and before Steve could grab back onto him, ruin his shot by tangling him up with Steve's own body and the shield, he'd already fired twice. Muffled thumps behind Steve, and the smell of burnt flesh, told him that at least one shot had gone home.

"What have you done?" cried Tripitaka, and began to chant, his mumbling harsher now with grief and anger, and Tony screamed, and screamed, and screamed –

"Stop it!" Steve shouted at Tripitaka, "You're not helping!"

"Murder!" cried one of the passerby, and another, "Fetch the guard!"

"He must learn," Tripitaka paused in his chant long enough to say, and then he was back to it – the armour did not collapse off of Tony this time, but his limbs were seizing in it, making it twitch and scrape against the road.

"We don't have a guard!" cried someone else, and, "The mayor!"

"Foreigners! They've killed a woman!"

An pair of officials – or at least they looked like officials, wearing robes far more ceremonial than anything anyone else was wearing – poked their heads out of the doorway of the government building. Steve took little note of them. He stood and crossed over to Tripitaka, and placed his hand firmly over the little man's mouth, almost firmly enough to break his jaw – and tipped his head back so Steve could glare into his eyes directly. It was not enough. Something incandescent within him wanted to snap Tripitaka's neck, but he – _could – not _–

"That is _enough_," Steve ordered, and Tripitaka stopped trying to struggle against him and instead began to nod.

Steve let him go, and knelt down by Tony. The armour was motionless; he couldn't hear Tony screaming anymore, but the armour was shielded enough that he couldn't hear Tony breathing, either. He damn sure _hoped_ that Tony was still breathing. "Tony?" he murmured, placing one hand against the chest plate.

"What has happened?" one of the officials cried. "Who has killed this woman?"

"It was that armoured man!" shouted somebody, who was immediately agreed with by half a dozen other voices.

"What shall we do? We don't have a guard," the male official said to his female counterpart.

"We'll have to send to the city for aid..."

"That could be months."

"Execute him!" suggested an onlooker, and was greeted with too much enthusiasm.

"Tony, damn it, are you alive?" Steve muttered, bending over him, but keeping a wary eye on the crowd around them. They were rapidly turning into a mob. Tony needed – to be locked up, yes, but he needed care – he wasn't in his right mind – if they'd all been human, he'd have had an idea what to say, how to convince them to let reason prevail, but these people's customs were so alien that Steve had no idea where to start.

_"...ow,"_ came the reply, very faintly, over the comm.

"We have no executioner," said female official. "One must be appointed by the queen."

"I have an alternate solution," said Tripitaka, stepping forward. "This man is a pilgrim on the road to Maklu, one of my disciples. Clearly he is unworthy of the position, and I must humbly apologize to this village for allowing him so far. But I have power over him that I may send him away, and order him to avoid all civilized lands; and so he may not take the road again in this lifetime. Will that be a suitable punishment instead?"

"To be banned from the road would be a fate much worse than death," said the female official. "But as it is for only one lifetime then it is not over-harsh. Very well. I accept this punishment as fair, honoured monk."

"As do I," declared the other official. "But only if you all leave immediately."

"Up," Steve muttered to Tony, and pulled him to his feet; Tony staggered slightly, but seemed able to keep his balance.

"Tony Stark," Tripitaka said solemnly, "I hereby cast you out; you are no longer my disciple."

_"Yippee."_ Tony still sounded dazed.

"Do not return to this road," he continued. "And if I hear of you killing anyone else, then I shall recite the mantra of tightening at every dawn, noon, and dusk for nine years. Go."

Tony might be able to keep his feet, but it wasn't clear that he could walk on his own; Steve kept a careful hand on his arm as he turned them around. It was hard to keep an incredulous expression off of his face. Tripitaka was just going to _let them go_ –

"Not you, Steve," Tripitaka ordered. "I still need a disciple to protect me – you'll remain."

_Damnit. _"I'm going with him."

"Then I'll recite it until you come back," Tripitaka said petulantly.

_"Stay with him,"_ Tony commed. _"Steve, stay. I'll be fine – I need to figure this out."_

"You need _help_," Steve told him, voice low.

"He needs to reflect on his crimes and not commit any more," said Tripitaka.

_"Then I'll find someplace I can get it – keep away from people, Steve. If I'm wrong, I've killed two people. But I'm not. There is some_thing _hunting us – hunting _you_."_

"I said leave immediately, not at your leisure," complained the official.

Tony shrugged off Steve's hand as Tripitaka told Steve, "You can start by finding Yulong."

"Tony – splitting up is the worst thing we could do!"

_"But there's no alternative. I'll be back." _He stepped away, back toward the east. _"Steve – be careful."_

"Promise the same," Steve murmured, as Tony engaged the repulsors and rose from the ground – slowly, but gaining speed with altitude. Steve watched him long enough for him to almost disappear from view, and caught the small cone that formed a moment later. Seconds later, the sonic boom ripped through the village.

"A powerful magician," said female official, shaken. "You are certain he will obey you, honoured monk?"

"Yes," said Tripitaka, although he _sounded_ less than certain. "May we collect supplies before we leave?"

"If it will get you away sooner, then yes," she agreed. "Brother, will you see to the body?"

The other official nodded unhappily. Steve closed his eyes. _Oh Lord our God, please keep watch over her soul, and let her end up somewhere safe – wherever that is for her. Forgive me my failure. Forgive Tony. I know he deserves to do penance for it, but – he's ill. Please, let him get better. We need him – the entire Earth needs him. He's the only one who can tell the Makluans exactly what happened to extremis. He's a good man – he's trying his best. Please._

Then he went to find Yulong.

* * *

**Elevation: 1934.1**  
** External temperature: 282**  
** Distance from S. Rogers: 23015**

**Distance from S. Rogers: 91833**

**Distance from S. Rogers: ERROR**

**_run ; open _**

**Warning: may cause fatal error.**

**_abort_**

**_run ; open ; debug_**

**...**  
**...**

**No errors detected.**

**_open ; debug_**

**...**  
** ...**  
** ...**

**No errors detected.**

**...  
****...**

**_exit _**

**_open _**

**Warning: may cause fatal error.**

**_ignore_**

**_debug_**

**...**  
** ...**

**object unknown4201:**  
** distanceR 3119;**  
** distanceTh 30.3;**  
** distancePh 19.2;**

**...**

**Warning: memory low**

**...**

**Warning: terminal loop detected**

** on core2**

**Warning: terminal loop detected**

** on core3 .text on core3 text warning: terminal lo.0000000000000000**

* * *

**Reset complete.**

**Elevation: 0**  
** External temperature: 283**  
** Distance from S. Rogers: ERROR**

**Warning: loop detected**

** .30498 on core2:**  
** startNum 199113237882;**  
** resourceAllocation 39139230;**  
** call currentHappy(numSero, numYay);**  
** eval(startNum,currentHappy);**  
** ...**

**.thought shit OFF**

**_shit OFF_**

** on core 4**

**.text Confirm: shit**

**Confirm: shit**

**.thought no**

**_no_**

** on core 4**

**.text Confirm: OFF**

**Confirm OFF**

**.thought _nonononono_**

**_nonononono_**

**Warning: terminal loop detected**

** on core 4**

**.thought stop**

**_stop_**

**Debug halted. Debug is incomplete.**

**_close_**

**Builder closed.**

**_thank fuck_**

"That was really stupid," Tony whispered to himself, letting his head thunk backward against the ground. The words echoed close inside the helmet – close, except for how they might have been a million miles away outside his head. He'd done more examining of his thoughts in the last few weeks than he had in an entire lifetime before then – literal examination, the kind only possible when you could print the code for your memories on your eyelids like a report on a screen. Compared to that, spoken words were... distant.

"Still an idiot." He pulled himself to his feet and groaned; wherever he'd crashed, it wasn't the side of the road like he'd been hoping. **_run _**

**Warning: System critical operations may be affected**

**_ignore_**

Idiot. Unsurpassed familiarity with himself aside, it was still stupid to try looking his own thoughts in realtime. He should have shut off more of his higher processes, first, just looked at the error analysis. He ought to be doing that _now_ – it was the only way to really be sure that the problem wasn't anything with _him_. Logic said it wasn't, gut instinct (ones and zeroes in the end, but whether they were biological or mimicked through extremis, he still didn't know how a lot of the deeper functions _worked_) said it wasn't – but complex systems were prone to fail, especially those designed by humans.

**_good thing I'm not quite human anymore, then_**

**_..._**

**_shut up_**

And now he was arguing with himself. Great. He appended a sarcastic smiley face to the chat-log of his thoughts.

It was a bad distraction from the real problem, which was that he wasn't willing to just shut himself down to safemode and do a full system scan. Not yet. Maybe not ever. So, plan B then – assume he was right and go find some external evidence of it.

"I like this plan," Tony murmured to himself. Then he made a face. "I need to stop talking to myself. Aloud. Shit. SHUT UP!" **_stopstopstopstopstop_**

The headband refused to listen, instead keeping up its deceptively cheerful hum.

"Come on, Steve," he whispered. "No words of wisdom for me?"

**_run ; open _**

"Oh, now this is a _delicious_ scene."

"Good afternoon. I'm Steve Rogers and this is Tony Stark – "

_"Are you insane?"_

" – and behind us are Tripitaka and Yulong. We're just passing through, although if there's a town nearby we could buy supplies at, we'd like to."

"How did you make it so far without someone snapping you up? I am fortunate indeed this day."

_"I don't think so."_

"A traveller who refuses aid freely given – are you cautious, then, or reckless, to refuse me so easily? You have not left the mountains far behind, mortal."

"Pretty far."

"Far enough to make your flesh exquisitely exotic. I'm going to enjoy sucking on your bones."

**_pause_**

Mountains it was. He walked forward, and his brain split into pieces; immediately a half-dozen warnings popped up about emotional compromise. He ignored them except to apply the standard patch he'd been using. Extremis, for all its tendency to turn people into zombies, was ludicrously redundant with its warnings; he wouldn't have thought Maya would take Windows Vista as a good role model, but every programmer had their blind spots.

The bits of his brain attended to their separate tasks, sending out hundreds, thousands of commands that made stepping from the ground into flight one smooth motion.

**_run plotter; open _**

His eyes were still pretty normal, but the suit's sensors saw across the broad EM spectrum, and in a couple other spectrums besides; the ultra-dense dimensional contortions of the world around him gave off their own form of ripples, data that he could crunch down in real time, although it took up a significant amount of his available memory. Course plotted, he zigzagged through spacetime and angled for the road again – it was still the shortest route to where he wanted to go. But that _wasn't_ Maklu.

Tony didn't quite land – instead, in the last second before he'd have made contact, extremis-powered nanobots rolled down, mass transferring from armour plating to his feet, and forming into wheels; the repulsors shifted up and back to align with his heels.

"You're saying no short-cuts."

"Essentially," Tony agreed, and grimaced. "It's a bit more complicated than that, but – "

**_stop_**

The subconsciously-called memory halted, instantly obedient. It was even more of a relief than the headache blocking program. Extremis allowed him to organize his thoughts, manage them on a level that he'd never been able to before – _forced_ him to do so, actually, because the downside of a more complicated system was that it really was more delicate, and if he didn't keep his mind in order he wound up babbling at himself like he had been a second ago. Business as usual, but now with recursive loops to turn it from 'annoying' to 'serious problem'.

Pepper would have laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

**_stop_**

Vectors, forces, moments; subconscious calculation of how his body ought to move to avoid falling over was no longer quite so subconscious. The numbers running in the back of his brain were his to access at any point he pleased; he didn't have to start from scratch to know where a value was coming from, he just needed to bring the process to the fore. His body leaned forward and balanced, the repulsors fired, and he went jet-booting down the road at approximately the same speed as a Japanese bullet-train going flat-out.

The road threw off readings, too, way more complex than the dimensional shenanigans that this place cooked up. Not something that he could analyze in real-time; not without a hell of a lot more assumptions than he knew how to make right now. But if there was one thing he'd learned from those oh-god-awful days in the mountains, trying to get Steve to keep walking and to eat without drooling, it was that the jet boots did work.

But he couldn't have carried Steve. You had to walk the road yourself.

"Unless you're Tripitaka," Tony muttered aloud. "Fucking Tripitaka." There was no commentary on this observation. The suit was silent, containing him, and only him –

**_stop_**

Or maybe it was because Yulong was a horse? That would actually explain why he was currently being a horse instead of a dragon.

"Oh Jesus, something about this place makes sense. Now I know I'm going crazy."

Steve was really damn fast for a human, but bullet-trains weren't human. Tony was aware of the nanobots stretched out on the road behind him, worn off the wheels – at the rate he'd been losing raw material this trip, there was a good chance he'd run through even his reserves before they got near Maklu... but that was a problem that continued to be a vague future worry, a pleasant logistical distraction. The nanoparticles he was losing weren't particularly intelligent; he wasn't sending any of his consciousness with them when they went.

When the mountains came into view, it was reflex to kick off and take to the air, approach it from up high – he didn't need to allocate a near-crippling amount of resources to the plotter, not with the mountains acting like some sort of massive anti-warping object as soon as he got away from the road. Two relative seconds from the road, and the range had doubled in size; ten seconds, and he could no longer detect the far edge of it.

Somewhere in here were answers. He needed to find them, and _fast_, before that thing came back again and ate Steve.

"Come on," he whispered to himself. Slowing his thoughts down long enough to convert them to human-interpretable audio speech gave him plenty of time to think and to code; he tweaked parameters and started sending out active pings. If there were dragons patrolling up here, let them come and find him; he'd tell them his name and demand answers. "Come on, I aided the beggar – well, I didn't stop Steve, anyway – and I've gotten nothing but shit for it. Gimme some fairy-tale karma here. You owe me."

**_I'm fucking _praying_ how is this my life I hate gods_**

Gods were murder-happy, bloodstained pieces of –

**_stop_**

Gods were just highly-advanced aliens using highly-advanced tech, and science was what came through for him. Pings returned a hit on a large stone building nestled up against a cliff face a couple dozen kilometers off; Tony turned and hit supersonic in less than a breath, extremis allowing him to take what punishment from acceleration the armour couldn't compensate for, and leaving him aching for more, to go _faster._Flight in the suit had never been anything short of spectacular, but with extremis the suit was his skin, and there was nothing between him and the sky but his own thoughts.

He was going to be spending the rest of his life making up for extremis. Assuming that he survived trying to make up for Loki.

The building looked like some kind of fortress, or maybe an eastern monastery of some sort – sure, Tony had designed and built skyscrapers in his time, but ancient architecture wasn't really his strong point, or his any kind of point, to be honest. He had to admire the way it was fastened on and into the cliff, though; a mathematician had been involved in that, and one hell of a geologist, judging from the deeper scans, the ones he had looking through rock, searching for monsters. Not that those had done him any good while trying to pinpoint the bastards the last time he'd been in these mountains, but he had to _try._

_**Monastery**,_ he decided after scans revealed the presence of a number of men and women inside who all appeared to be wearing clothing similar to Tripitaka's, except designed for colder weather. The way their heads were shaved –

**_stop_**

There were parts of the building that were blocked. Tony made note of that, then stopped splitting his conscious mind over so many processors, pulling himself back into real-time. He dropped to subsonic speeds and a moment later landed, a perfect three-pointer, in the main courtyard.

_"My name is Tony Stark and I'd like to talk to somebody about the things that live in these mountains," _he announced before anyone could start breathing fire at him.

He waited. A moment later, a monk stuck his head out – her head? It was a bit difficult to tell, man or woman; then again it was hard to tell that he/she/they wasn't (weren't?) human, which was probably more to the point.

"Please, come inside," the monk said politely, in a low alto voice. That was no help at all. He'd met a number of very lovely men and women who spoke in that register.

No fire-breathing. That was good. He kept the sensors on active-mode as he followed the monk through the low stone doorway; probably it was bad manners, but he'd had enough of being taken by surprise, thanks. He was at least courteous enough not to go looking through clothes and skin.

Bad manners or not, his scans didn't go unnoticed. "There are many living things in these mountains," the monk said, "but I think by your precautions that you do not refer to any of them."

_"Things that eat travellers. They hunt around the road."_ Hopefully the monks here would make it quick so he wouldn't have to cut them short by fleeing from their sudden but inevitable betrayal. Everybody who'd started out acting like they might help them in this place had ended up trying to screw them over – except maybe Yulong, but he liked Tripitaka, so the jury was still out on him.

"Those are not living creatures."

_"Fine, then I'd like to talk to somebody about things that do their not-living in these mountains."_

"Yes, I know," the monk agreed. "The mountain air whispered of your passage – " well, it wasn't like he'd been subtle with the sensor sweeps. "He is expecting you."

**_right that's not ominous_**

They passed other monks in the halls, most recognizably men or women; none looked particularly interested in him. Exactly the opposite, in fact. They all completely avoided looking at him; it was enough to give a guy a complex.

They went further in, past the point where the fortress wall met the mountain-side, and his scans started throwing back garbage, senseless data – he saved it anyway, since it probably wasn't garbage. He just didn't have a big enough picture yet. He certainly wasn't the only one running scans here – but their scans were all sub-terrestrial. How did they keep the signals from leaking into the air? With every step of his boots he could feel the amount of power they were sending out in those pulses, monitoring... what?

"Here," said the monk, stopping as they came to a blank rock wall that every single aspect of extremis was insisting was a blank rock wall, except for his too-suspicious brain. Maybe the screwing-over part was due to come a little earlier this time around. But the monk motioned for Tony to keep walking. "He is beyond."

**_i need to figure out how they do this_**

He stepped through slowly. It wasn't entirely on purpose. Sure, he hadn't planned to rush – had planned to give his sensors an extra few fractions of a second to pick up whatever was there. He hadn't expected for it to be _there_, there, all in his head, and he froze; then stumbled as he came out the other side. Raw data was dumped into long-term memory and sealed; he didn't have time for that now. Not when he was faced with a... something. Not a dragon. Possibly what you would get if you cut off a pig's head and stuck it on a dragon, except one without any of the shimmering scales or ethereality – a snake, then. One ten meters long and half a meter in diameter, with an oversized pig's head stuck on it. It was curled over a cauldron full of – particle analysis told him _exactly_ what it was and, well, if he'd had to imagine what pigs ate, that would be it. Mush dripped down from its mouth as it raised its head, abandoning the slops, and settled its coils comfortably.

"Hello," it said, in a bass voice so deep he'd have felt it in his skin even if he hadn't had extra sensors embedded there.

_"Hi."_ Awkward. _"I'm told you can help me."_

"The purpose of this monastery is to aid all lawful travellers."

Well, crap. Ignore that for now. _"You're kinda far from the road to be much help, don't you think? I was travelling on it this whole last week, and you were distinctly not aiding."_

"You continued to make progress despite our wards," the pig-snake explained. It was frowning now, which on that face was an expression somewhere between hilarious and terrifying. "Anyone without a sage of sufficient power to protect them would have been turned back before they could encounter the demons. From our remote observations, I had thought you such a sage."

_"Feel free to go away and stop _stalking_ us anytime."_

"I think not. It's been ages since I smelled anyone from so far away. And then there's you... you aren't a Great Sage, and yet you _can_see me truly, can't you?"

_"Not exactly."_

"No, that is obvious. If you were a sage you would not lack such basic knowledge."

_"Great. How about you make me more sage-like and fill me in? I'm told it would be good for my spiritual health."_

"I'm not sure to you it would matter," said the pig-snake, swaying forward. Its eyes were two black points in its face, strangely mesmerizing. Something dripped from one fang – poison? It turned green as it hit the floor, spreading –

**Unauthorized access detected.**

**_trace_**

Like hell he was letting this thing _inside his head –_

"Ah," breathed the pig-snake, a wash of fetid, rotting air; Tony quickly shut down half his particle analysis subroutines before they made him gag. "I see. Well, that's an unusual way about the problem, most ingenious. I'm surprised whoever built you didn't give you more information to ensure you could protect your charges, however."

**_what_**

The trace was cut off as abruptly as if somebody had took scissors to it, _damn _it. At least it took the unauthorized access with it.

_"Nobody built me. Except maybe myself."_ And Maya Hansen, but he'd cleared out enough of her programming – and Tem Borjigin, but thinking about that just made him feel ill – and apparently an alien dragon, but that didn't matter, that wasn't _him_. That was extremis, and extremis was an _upgrade_, and _only_ an upgrade.

Somehow he didn't get the idea that the pig-snake was talking about upgrades.

"There you are labouring under a misapprehension," it told him. "Truly living things – _people_ – have souls – a sort of essence of themselves. The truth of their being. You do not. Ergo the demons shall not touch you, for they feast only upon living flesh; and you are immune to their particular magicks, which we here mimic to keep the demons imprisoned within the mountains, and unwary travellers out."

_"What the hell are you?"_

"One of the old kind, mortal. All travellers upon the Great Road are my proper prey. You might be something else, but your friends are _mine_."

_"I have a soul,"_ Tony said, mind racing. Alternatony – he'd been _sure_, and hell, he was more inclined to take his own word than this thing's. _"It's been cursed and everything."_ Hel had offered him oblivion over it, he'd seen an afterlife – he had a soul.

"I'm sure you think you do," said the pig-thing, making an expression that – dear god, was that supposed to be a smile? It sounded _indulgent_. "I'm beginning to think whomever built you wasn't a particularly nice person."

_"Sir, I cannot perceive whatever it is that is causing you such distress."_

"Does that mean you count as dead?"

_"It more likely means you are incapable of programming me a soul."_

This was bad. This was all of his backup plans shredded, if he couldn't take down Loki first. He should have looked into that god-forsaken curse in more detail – if those options had been taken away from him now, he needed to know _when_, _why_ – and he needed to know why the fuck he_cared_ so much, beyond all its practical implications. So souls were real – so what? Steve had seen a jewel, a gem, that let him look at souls – Steve was content to listen to a guy who said 'it's magic' and not press for an explanation beyond that, what the hell did it matter, every version of JARVIS had been a person, who the fuck cared if he didn't have a soul?

"You, uh – still look tired."

"And I shouldn't be. I know."

**_stop_**

_"So I lost it at some point, that doesn't mean I was _built – "

"A true consciousness cannot be separated from its soul," said the pig-snake. "It would be like trying to separate a tree from its plant nature. You are very advanced for a proto-consciousness, however." It said this like it was trying to console him.

_"Excuse me? I am a fucking human being, pal."_

"I'm afraid not," it disagreed. "Do you have any idea who built you? If they gave you no indication of your true state, then perhaps they were trying to replicate the consciousness of someone they knew."

**_what_**

No, extremis had been _him _–

- crashing, metal protesting, the hum of ozone and electricity –

**_stop_**

"The punishment for the misuse of sorcery is to deny its practice to the miscreant."

**_stop_**

"If you go back to New York your hands will still be broken. You'll still be dying – you'll be pushed back months. Years. Loki isn't going to wait – you have the advantage now, while that other you is distracting him – you can fix it, you just have to change the coordinates – "

**_quarantine _**

**Warning: System critical operations may be affected**

**_ignore_**

**Initiating quarantine.**  
** Files quarantined: 192**  
** Files quarantined: 738914**  
** Files quarantined: 59192413**

He hadn't died. He _had not died _–

"Speaking of which, it should have been noted on your papers anyway. Have you never read them? Where is your passport?"

Ah, crap.

* * *

"Get off the road," Steve ordered tersely.

He was out of breath. He'd insisted on scouting ahead – it meant he wasn't going to risk breaking Tripitaka's jaw on his fist... a desire that was starting to scare him with its intensity. Him scouting ahead had also more than halved their speed. Hopefully, that meant that once Steve sorted Tripitaka out, they'd be able to reunite with Tony easily.

If Tony was still around. He was out of comm. range. He'd just... taken off.

After killing two innocent women.

"We cannot avoid everyone for the rest of our journey," protested Tripitaka, but since Yulong was siding with Steve this time and had already turned for the edge of the road, he didn't have that much choice in the matter. Unless he pulled his trump card. The threat of that was like an axe hanging over Steve's head – no, not Steve's. Tony's.

God, where was Tony? Steve had been sure he'd get back into contact as soon as he could, sneak into radio range while Tripitaka was asleep or something – but it had been over a week, and Steve had heard _nothing_. Seen nothing. A week in which they'd leapt off the road at the slightest sign of there being anyone else on it, in which they'd detoured around towns and avoided farms like they were plague-ridden. A week in which Steve had barely slept, and when he did doze off, he found himself dreaming of all the cold, calculatingly cruel ways that he could break Tripitaka to his will, if only he weren't such a _coward_. And waking – those moments of waking were the worst of all, when he was caught between horror at his sleeping mind, and doubt...

"Tony was mad," Tripitaka sulked. "If we avoid everyone else, we shall run out of food and starve without ever reaching Maklu."

"If something out there drove Tony crazy, then we have to avoid it."

"It's long behind us." There was a mulish set to Tripitaka's mouth. Steve didn't like it. It spoke of finite impatience – and a budding will to start issuing orders instead of obeying them.

Lord, he hated power games like this. He wished, desperately, for Natasha – for her expertise and her utter practicality in using it. Every night Steve tried to convince Tripitaka to go back, and every night Tripitaka just _ignored_ him. Natasha would have known how to come at the issue sideways; Steve's efforts to do so were all fumbling, pathetic things that left his argument dead before he could even start it.

They were across several farmers' fields, well out of shouting range, when the people Steve had spotted up-ahead came around the bend in the road. They were travelling in two loose groups, on foot – of course, Tony had said that was the way that the road worked – with all adults in the first group, ten of them, and another fourteen mixed adults and children behind. There were two large carts drawn by some six-legged horses that looked about as impressive as donkeys next to Yulong.

"Hardly much of a threat," Tripitaka said disapprovingly.

"Yeah, well," Steve muttered, feeling exhaustion creep into his voice. The group was obviously travelling like that for safety – a pity they couldn't do the same, hook up with some people heading in the same direction. The idea of being able to sleep soundly at night, knowing he had somebody whom he trusted to watch his back, was an enticing fantasy. If he –

A shout caught his attention; there was a woman standing on the road, carrying a basket, and one of the travellers had called a greeting to her – she'd come from the same direction as Steve, Tripitaka, and Yulong. Normal human sight wouldn't have been able to distinguish her features enough to recognize her at this distance, but Steve's sight wasn't normal. Normal human ears would not have been able to make out her reply either, but the words sounded clearly to him over the distance:

_"I am Jun, and my village is not far beyond. Would you like me to walk back with you and introduce you?"_

"Stay here," Steve ordered, and set off at a sprint.

The villagers had started walking toward Jun again; a moment later, the sound of their reply reached them, slower than the sight had: _"We'd be glad to have someone else introduce us. The road has been friendly, but one can never be too careful."_

"_STOP!_" Steve screamed at them – but he was too far away. The soft dirt was slippery, terrible for running in – quicksand would have been better – and then he managed to hit a place where somebody must have walked before, or been less diligent about keeping the soil so damn aerated, because his feet stopped digging in quite so much and he could _run_. It was too close - "_STOP!_"

The first bunch of travellers looked up at the oddly-dressed crazy man running across a field toward them, and collectively stepped forward, spreading out to shield the second group – and including Jun within that. They held staves in their hands, but if the earlier weapons he'd faced were any indication, those could be hiding some seriously advanced technology. "STOP! Don't let her get behind you!"

"Back off!" one of the men yelled back, clutching his staff and sliding his feet out into a combat stance – two of his fellows were doing the same, but it was clear that the rest of them had never had any sort of combat training. "We'll defend ourselves!"

Steve hit the ditch at the edge of the road with his front foot perfectly planted and _leapt,_ his momentum carrying him forward and his jump carrying him up, over the heads of the astounded travellers – they didn't even try to take a swing at him. He was already re-balanced when he hit the ground, and didn't even stumble – just raised his shield and asked, voice hard, "Who are you, really?"

He'd thought Tony had been going crazy, because of her. Tripitaka had _tortured_ Tony, because of her.

"Finally," Jun breathed, and her jaw split open, unhinging somewhere behind her ear; rents in her cheeks revealed more teeth, far more teeth than any human should have. The people around them disappeared; long wiggling masses of flesh grew in their place, and each had a mouth similar to Jun's, and more _teeth _– those were the tentacles Tony had mentioned, Steve realized: thinner ropes of flesh linked back the bulbous ends to Jun, and there was something beneath her basket – something – he couldn't –

_Don't look don't look don't look_

And then it was too late; the tentacles were all lunging for him, and he tried to move but he was too slow.

* * *

_"Ow, Jesus,"_ Tony complained as the androgynous monk that had shown him in now showed him _out_ with a very firm grip on his arm. Given the armour, there wasn't any actual pain involved – not as –

**_a human being_**

- somebody without the extremis enhancements would classify it; and even if there had been then the painblocker patch could have taken care of it. But pain was the general human indicator of damage or potential damage, and Tony didn't need it to tell when the monk's grip was strong enough to cause the armour actual strain. Shit, what did they feed these people out here?

"Not only are you a criminal, you are a very stupid one," said the monk darkly, ignoring his complaints.

Not that he was _complaining_ very hard, either – if Tony had wanted to he could have broken the grip and backhanded the monk into a wall, busted out of the fortress with a few well-placed munitions (or brought down the entire thing) – but what might happen after that wasn't so clear, and he was trying to avoid active hostility. The monks were content to, as the pig-snake had said, "Send you packing off home until you learn a damned lesson, and your creator along with you," and he actually did prefer that over the idea of trying to fight his way past a dozen dragons.

He was getting cautious in his old age, look at that.

_"At least tell me about the demons while you're throwing me out,"_ he bargained. _"My friend's in trouble – I think there's one stalking him along the road. And not in the mountains, either – we were out of them when it first showed up."_

The monk frowned, and said stiffly. "We send out parties every year to hunt those demons that slip past our nets. Often there are none, but we are not always so fortunate."

_"Great, I'm sure that will be a comfort to him when it's snacking on his bones,"_ Tony said sarcastically, although knowing Steve it actually _would_ be a comfort to him, that somebody would come along and stop it from killing more people. Still didn't solve the problem of how to keep _Steve_alive, though. _"How do you kill it? I shot the thing point-blank and it just went poof, then showed up less than an hour later."_

"There is a ritual. If you were a sage, you would know this. As you are a construct, you've not the ability to destroy a demon in any case. Your friend's best chance would be to stay off the road, which it cannot leave of its own will – we shall destroy it soon, and then both you and he can return to your homelands to secure the _proper_ paperwork and cease trespassing everywhere."

They'd reached the doorway out into the courtyard; the monk shoved him through it, following and closing the door firmly. "Go." There was a little shooing motion to accompany the order.

Tony dissolved the faceplate. "Please," he said seriously, adjusting his body language to the right combination of proud, competent, and begging-for-help – not possible in the old suit, and not a pose that he had a lot of practice at to begin with, but subroutines made everything easier, made muscle memory from half-forgotten drunken episodes. "Tell me what this ritual is – I can tell my friend, and he can do it. He's got a hell of a lot of soul to be working with."

The monk eyed him, waiting; Tony held his expression, and at last, the monk gave in with a grumble. "It will get you back to your lands and make you stop breaking such laws much sooner, I suppose. _If_ your friend can complete it. The demons that break loose are those most bound to the road – they are the ones who can travel upon it the easiest. To destroy it, it must first be lured away from the road, and then three koans must be spoken at it; and after that, it is a matter of will, and whether your friend has enough."

"Great," Tony said encouragingly. "What's a koan?"

The monk threw up their hands in disgust. "You are beyond all help," he/she declared, and went back inside, slamming the door shut and leaving Tony standing out in the icy courtyard, alone.

**External temperature: 273**

Tripitaka would have to know what a koan was, right? But that would mean he'd have to get back within range of Tripitaka – or, no; he could get Steve to ask Tripitaka. Though given the dimensional distortions, getting close enough just to use the comm. would probably require using the cloak to stay hidden.

He'd reconfigured the nanobots for some solar-energy-capture, but that was... really just a drop in the bucket, compared to what it took to run the suit's full functions – nevermind the ICG. He'd mostly done it so that if something happened, the protocol would already be in place to start generating backup energy – extremis wouldn't have to shut down entirely.

The cloak wouldn't last long enough; and he couldn't afford to use it like that...

If Tripitaka caught him, he'd – well, he hadn't specified what he'd do if Tony just _came back_, exactly, but it was bound to be painful. Emotional warnings popped up, and he shut them down – his mouth was dry, his palms clammy, and – shit, **_stop_ **- stop wasn't working, not like it should be. Too much of this was in his base code, what the hell. Why had he programmed fear, any fear but especially _this_ fear, into his base code? He must've been out of his goddamned mind – oh, wait, _he had been_.

Ignore that. He had to do something – that thing was going to kill Steve if he didn't. And probably Tripitaka, which would also be... pain.

**_i have to go back. i _have _to go back_**

One path, probable pain – the other path, certain. There really was no choice here.

"Time to roll the dice," he muttered, and with a thought the faceplate closed around him, and he was in the air.

* * *

Pain lit up Steve's right shoulder as a jawful of teeth bit through his suit; he tried to punch the tentacle-head that had bitten him in the mouth with his left hand, but another mouth got in the way, and he had to jam the shield into it instead. It bit down and half its teeth promptly shattered. The entire creature let go with a dozen roars of pain, letting him duck into a backward roll – and possibly leaving a couple of teeth broken off inside his shoulder, he wasn't sure. It felt like there were shards of shattered glass in there, but he couldn't tell if that was because there _were_ or if that was normal for having an arm nearly bitten clean off.

The pain brightened his focus, though, pulled him from being locked into looking at its main body. More heads came down but Steve was ready for them now: he ducked beneath gaping, slavering jaws and slammed his shield into one, breaking more teeth; they fell to the road with a sound like chimes. He had to get out – but the thing was all around him, closing in. His right arm hung uselessly at his side and his shoulder throbbed with every movement.

Movement at the edge of his vision – Yulong. Yulong, riderless, which meant that Tripitaka was out there somewhere, undefended – _damn it_. Steve bashed in a few more tentacles, bringing his shield down to half-sever one, and Yulong made a leap twice the distance of what Steve had managed, landing behind the creature, and changed.

If there'd been any doubt in Steve's mind that Yulong was the river dragon that they'd seen before, there was none now – he became twice the size of the horse he had been, then more; the strap beneath his stomach keeping the saddle on burst and all their gear went flying off. His legs vanished into his body as his scales and fins reappeared, his head growing huge and enormous; he struck down and bit off a tentacle, then spat it out into the ditch.

"You're a long way from home, river-dragon," snarled a half-dozen of the mouths – and damn, that was true. Steve had taken advantage of the distraction to bash a few more tentacles, but for every one he severed or pulped, there seemed to be another taking its place – was it multiplying, like a hydra? No – there didn't seem to be more of them than there had been in the beginning, thank God. But there weren't any less, either, and it was painfully obvious from Yulong's awkward gyrations that he really wasn't built for being on land. He was already bloodied in a half-dozen places.

_"Well hey, something to be said for gambling," _said a blessedly familiar voice in Steve's ear, and then Tony was there, on the road behind Yulong, and launching himself into the air.

"We need to hit its body – it's just regrowing these tentacles," Steve panted, a much more urgent concern than saying _Oh thank God_, no matter his personal feelings. "Drop down on it – I can't get near it – " and neither could Yulong, by the looks of it; but now they could come at it from three directions.

_"On it,"_ Tony said, dropping down out of the sky and right next to its body. But he didn't hit it with the repulsors – fair enough; he'd tried that before – instead, wrapping both his arms around it and taking off, pulling it into the air with him and off of the road. All of the mouths screamed as one, turning back on him – _"Ow Jesus fuck what is it with these people and stupid sharp ow – "_ repulsors shot off several heads and Tony dropped the thing into the fields... about halfway to Tripitaka.

"Tony, get Tripitaka out of there!" Tony was at least between Tripitaka and the monster, now, but that wasn't necessarily any better if Tripitaka panicked.

_"Better idea, you get over here – keep it off the road," _Tony said, and then switched to speakers to add, _"Tripitaka, to destroy this thing Steve needs to say three koans."_

Steve couldn't hear Tripitaka's answer over the blood pounding in his ears – and throbbing through his injured shoulder – but he vaulted the ditch and ran toward it. "What the hell's a koan?"

_"'Every time Baizhang, Zen Master Dahui, gave a dharma talk, a certain old man would come to listen,'"_ said Tony, evidently repeating Tripitaka._"'He usually left after the talk, but one day he – ' Jesus, isn't there a shorter one?"_

The monster came boiling back toward the road, tentacles snapping and waving; Tony shot up overhead and lopped most of them off in one shot with a beam from his wrist-lasers. It flinched back, screaming – still screaming – with the same number of mouths, too. Steve hadn't managed to see them regrow, yet it still had the same number – and there weren't any tentacles lying on the ground, either. What _was_ this thing?

"Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?" Tripitaka shouted.

_"You have got to be kidding me,"_ Tony said flatly. _"Steve, say it."_

"Two hands clap – " Steve dove out of the way as three mouths turned toward him, though they were almost immediately cut off by another laser beam – "and there's a sound. What's the sound of one hand? Tony – " he ducked and rolled again – "I don't think this is working – "

_"Two more,"_ Tony urged.

If koans were just supposed to be stupid questions – "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody's around to hear it, does it make a sound?" Steve backed off, then realized he was backing toward the road, and threw himself to the side instead.

"I hadn't heard that one before," called Tripitaka, sounding far too philosophical about the whole thing. "Ah – if you meet the Buddha, kill him."

_What?_ No time to wonder about what these koans were supposed to be – Steve barely got his leg out of the way of one snapping jaw (Tony's laser sliced the head off the moment he was clear), and shouted, "If you meet the Buddha, kill him!"

"You have no true wisdom!" the monster's central body snarled at him – one mouth only – and an arm, an actual arm, not a tentacle, was lifting the lid of the basket –

_"Steve, move!"_

But he couldn't. What was inside – he could not –

A hand grabbed him by his uninjured shoulder and pulled him into the air, spinning him around and breaking his line of sight; Steve gasped for breath, finding his lungs starving for air. _"Steve, focus," _Tony told him urgently, dipping low to cut off the monster's retreat toward the road with a barrage of repulsors all firing at once – _"You have to will it destroyed. Come on, Greatest Generation, this should be _easy_ for you – "_

They dropped back down and Steve was suddenly looking straight at it. He squeezed his eyes shut – he couldn't get caught by it again. _Go,_ he thought, and _die_ – but that wasn't right, that wasn't what Tony had said, and Tony seemed to have figured out what this thing was even if his proposed method of defeating it was ridiculous – _die, drop dead, you're NOTHING_ –

_You are my prey,_ something said, but it wasn't aloud – it was in his head. All at once he could feel the mouths snapping at him, but not at flesh, they were going to eat him – him, and Tripitaka, and then Tony would be –

He raised his shield above him and felt it grow in weight and size, impossibly so – but he wasn't complaining. The added weight gave it more force when he slammed it down into the soil, an impenetrable wall between him and the monster. It would not have him, and he _would_ not leave Tony to Tripitaka's revenge. The monster's heads collided with the shield, and some tried to bite into it – losing teeth as heads before them had – but none so much as attempted to pass around it.

That still left the problem of how he was going to get at _it_, though. Steve vaulted to the top of his shield without the faintest amount of effort, although his shield had now grown to the size of a mountain, itself. The monster, very far below him, looked quite small. He hurtled himself at it without concern for the distance between them – and bounced off of something smooth, like a curved dome made of glass. The impact made his head throb, and for a moment he opened his eyes and saw the farmer's field before him. Tony was hovering just in front and before him, slicing away convulsing tentacle-necks with his blue laser beams, protecting Tripitaka's huddled form across the field. Steve's shield was normal-sized, still in his own hands.

_"Heathen!"_ snarled the mouths triumphantly, and the writhing necks bunched up and charged straight for him – for Tony, in front of him.

_No,_ Steve thought, and shut his eyes. Some part of him was aware of Tony grabbing him again, lifting him into short flight – but he had to trust that Tony would protect his body while he tried to end this thing. In his mind's eye the mountain of his shield appeared again, and the glass dome of the monster's own protections – he beat at them with his fists, but it was no good. He'd need to uproot his shield to attack the thing properly, and as soon as he did that it would be on him. But then how?

"Oh!" said Tripitaka, sounding at once very near – he was standing right beside Steve – and very far: he was lying in the dirt half a field away. Tony had dropped them down again. "_Now_ I understand. It cannot withstand enlightenment. This is the first question I posed to my master: Does a dog have a Buddha nature or not?"

The mind-beast writhed and howled, _"No!"_ to which Tripitaka nodded – and it shrank back, beneath its screaming rage. The monster's glass shield – curiously visible, now that Steve knew to expect it – had gone all gummy, like taffy left out in the sun.

But even if Tripitaka understood what sort of magic might be needed to deal with the thing, it was clear that he lacked the willpower to do it properly. He needed help. Tony had been sure it could be Steve, sure it could be a matter of will – in this place where will was his shield, as tall as a mountain...

_Oh_, thought Steve, feeling a bit stupid. He tipped his shield over. It fell with a thunderous booming noise, broken slightly by the sound of the shield being thoroughly squished beneath its weight.

Steve opened his eyes. The monster was collapsing – fading, the horrible basket already gone, and the rest of it turning to sludge and quickly disappearing. Only the teeth remained, lying in little piles over the field. Steve nearly staggered with relief – would have, except that Tony was still holding him up with one hand maglocked to Steve's suit.

_"Go team,"_ said Tony, sounding smugly satisfied, and Steve huffed out a laugh, letting Tony take his weight. _"Shit. You okay? I thought it missed everything vital."_

Of course Tony would have scans to tell him that. "It did," Steve grunted, looking down at his shoulder. There would have been a _lot_ more blood if one of the teeth had managed to sever an artery – the serum took care of small arterial nicks really damn fast, like it somehow knew that they were life-threatening. "Just adrenaline crash." He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. With the adrenaline fading rapidly, the pain was actually starting to register.

_"Sit down,"_ Tony said, lowering him down so that Steve didn't have much of a choice, and he ended up half-leaning against Tony's leg. _"Sorry, I wish I had painkillers."_

"I've had worse," Steve said, but he had to grit his teeth to swallow down a hiss of pain at the movement. "You okay?" Those teeth had gone through the armour, too, although it was already repairing itself – could Tony repair his own flesh as easily?

_"I'm fine. Tripitaka, don't – uh – just don't..."_

Steve forced his eyes open – he hadn't realized he'd closed them. Well. After the week he'd had, he was more than a little tired.

"I told you not to come back," Tripitaka said. Despite the fact that Tony had saved their asses, he actually sounded _angry_, a complete one-eighty from how he'd sounded just a moment earlier in that... mindscape... place. "You slew two innocent women, and as punishment have been – "

"Wait," Steve said, hauling himself to his feet using Tony as a support. His injured shoulder throbbed like the teeth were still stuck in there. "Wait, Tripitaka, he wasn't crazy. That monster was a shape-shifter."

"What?"

_"Genuine demon,"_ said Tony. _"Hunts things along the road."_

Tripitaka wouldn't have been able to hear its introduction to... well, itself, since the travellers had all been bits of it. Steve hurried the explanation. "The monster – it took the form of the same woman we met, just now – that's why I went running back to the road. I saw it was the same woman. It must've been the other one, too, if Tony could see it all along."

Tripitaka glanced between them, and then behind them – Steve looked back as well, and saw Yulong, returned to horse form, plodding wearily over to them. He didn't look good, either – dozens of small, bloody bites covered him, standing out in stark contrast to his white hide.

_"I found a monastery back in the mountains that explained it,"_ Tony shrugged, shifting Steve's weight against him. _"Steve, sit back down before you fall down."_

"I owe you an apology then," Tripitaka said gravely. "In my role of teacher, I have failed my student." He looked troubled, and he cast his gaze down to the ground instead of meeting their eyes. "The dog is a bag of flesh, because it knowingly offends," he said to himself very quietly.

_"Uh-huh. How about this – you don't use the headband against me again, and we'll call it square."_

Tripitaka frowned. "I will consider it."

The Iron Man armour was unmoving against Steve, but Tony didn't say anything further, and Steve grit his teeth as he let himself sit down again. Tripitaka would 'consider it'? Back when they'd met him, he'd said he _wouldn't_, except to make them take him with them – they were losing ground.

"I'm glad you came back," Steve said, looking up at Tony.

_"Oh, ye of little faith. I wasn't gone that long."_

Steve frowned. Their timelines hadn't matched up? Tony had said he could compensate for that – "It was a week."

_"...huh."_

"I thought you could calculate the time difference."

_"Wouldn't be the first time I was wrong,"_ said Tony shortly. _"Stay here, I'll get the stuff Boxer dropped."_

"Tony." Steve grabbed his shin before he could fly off. "I'm sorry."

_"Something was mind-whammying _one_ of us, you made a judgement call."_

That wasn't what he was apologizing for. Well, it was – he'd made a judgement call, and though the evidence he'd had at the time had been all he'd had to work at... he hadn't been good enough to figure out anything _more_ from that evidence.

But mostly, he hadn't been able to protect Tony. He hadn't been able to talk Tripitaka around in a week.

_"Steve. It's fine."_ Tony's voice was almost gentle, but he moved his leg out of Steve's grip – and it was either let go or let Tony drag him into falling over. Steve let go. _"Stay here. I'll be back in a minute – I'll even _walk, _no time differentials need get involved."_

"Alright," Steve said, and watched him go.

* * *

A/N: FFN keeps randomly stripping spaces between the occasional pairs of words when I copy text over. I've combed through this chapter (and the others), but if you see any I've missed - or have any other pointers - I'd be glad to hear about it.


	5. The Imposter King

_"Aha!"_ Tony exclaimed, about a week and a half later. _"Got it."_ He sounded triumphant, although of course, Steve couldn't read his expression – not with the faceplate down, and in the last nine days, Tony hadn't raised it once. Steve was starting to get concerned – well, that was a lie. He had _started_ to be concerned eight days ago.

"Got what?"

_"Got how the demon targeted the illusions specifically at you. I think. Can you see this?"_ He held out his hand, palm repulsor up.

"Your gauntlet?"

There was a pause. _"...no. Damn it."_

Steve shook his head. "Sorry." He sighed. "You'll have time to work on it tonight – I want to stop early."

_"We've still got supplies."_

"Yeah, and I'd like to make use of them. We all smell, and I'm exhausted."

And he was pretty sure that Tony, despite needing sleep now – for reasons still unknown – had not _actually_ slept at all in the past eleven days. But it was impossible for Steve to be completely sure, because Tony hadn't been willing to lift the damn faceplate once, not since he'd gotten back from wherever he'd gone when Tripitaka had sent him away. He was becoming more than a bit erratic over the comm., chattering away with the occasional non-sequiturs that left Steve scrambling to catch up – and concerned that somehow Tripitaka had done something to Tony with koans, even though the idea was ridiculous. Tony was not some sort of monstrous creature that could be defeated by spouting nonsense rhymes – or maybe he could, if it was a spell... but there had to be power behind it, and Tripitaka had proven he _didn't_ have that type of willpower.

"Enlightenment can only come to the willing," Tripitaka had said sadly, when Steve had asked him about koans – about koans, but not about Tony._Still_...

Tony hadn't even been willing to let Steve check his injuries – for all that he'd fussed over Steve's – instead insisting that extremis would repair them quicker if he remained completely encased within the armour. It had rung true at the time – but like a hollow truth, no matter that the armour had looked as good as new within a day. It might not have been a falsehood, but it hadn't been the real reason Tony wouldn't take the armour off.

Steve had been trying to give him space, but that didn't seem to be working.

_"Speak for yourself, I'm a rose,"_ Tony said smugly. _"'If you meet the Buddha, kill him.'"_

"What?"

_"The koan. That one doesn't fit. Tree falls in a forest, sound of one hand clapping – murder of a major religious figure? Doesn't follow."_

"Point," Steve agreed, and kept himself from suggesting the logical course of action, which would to ask Tripitaka. It wasn't like Steve wanted to talk to Tripitaka, either.

_"So what's its meaning? Why does it damage a demon? It talked about... wisdom, and spiritual power, so these are things... but how the words fit in..."_ Tony wasn't really talking to him anymore, Steve recognized; he was just talking aloud. Well, though the comm., so it was even odds whether he was actually talking aloud or just transmitting the radio signals, but it came out to the same thing. _"Hmm."_

"Is there anything I can say to convince you to stop thinking about this?" Steve asked wearily.

_"If you've got your shield, I've got armour,"_ Tony said. He sounded almost smug – almost. Maybe it was the comm., maybe it was the lack of sleep, but there was something... not quite right, still. _"And a labyrinth, if I can build one – knowledge _is_ the best defence, Captain Ostrich."_

That was unfair. Steve let it go.

He didn't say anything more for the next hour and a half, at which point they crested a rise and found themselves looking down on a large complex below – fields of crops laid out not around farmhouses, but a central stone building set about a half-mile away from the road.

"Oh, luck!" cried Tripitaka. "Here they will certainly take us in for the night."

"You sure?" asked Steve, glancing at him. They hadn't exactly met many friendly people yet, although after their first two disastrous stops in a town, they'd at least been able to buy supplies at the third one.

"Yes, it is a friendly temple," Tripitaka said with confidence, so they kept on, and when they came to the track leading away from the white road, they turned off on it.

_"Ten bucks says they throw us out in half an hour,"_ predicted Tony, as Tripitaka bowed to the elderly lady monk who came out to greet them. She reminded Steve quite firmly of one of the nuns at the orphanage – a woman who didn't have much time for nonsense, but had infinite patience for the garden. Since the monk's robes were quite covered in dirt and she was holding a spade which she kept drumming her fingers on impatiently, Steve rather thought that they'd probably have gotten along like a house on fire.

"Of course you are quite welcome to stay the night," she said, when Tripitaka had finished the introductions. "Come. I will show you to the guest cells where you may deposit your things, and meditate until dinner."

_"...make that two minutes."_

"They're religious, it's not like a prison cell," Steve muttered under his breath, smiling at the monk politely when she glanced at him.

_"Uh-huh. Gonna take the original bet, then?"_

"No deal."

He should have, though, Steve thought later, after polishing off dinner – it hadn't exactly been a large meal, even for a guy without a metabolism four times normal. But they had more food back with their gear – he could eat more later. He ended up stealing Tony's plate anyway.

"Are you sure you don't need to eat?" he murmured under his breath. Tripitaka was regaling the monastery of the trials he'd faced – with a surprising amount of humility – but it seemed like so-called 'students' were supposed to keep their mouths shut.

_"Curse."_

"Sleeping."

_"Extremis."_

Steve grimaced. "Just... maybe you should try it."

Tony's voice conveyed perfectly well that if Steve had been able to see his face, he'd see that Tony was wrinkling his nose. _"I'll pass. Not a big fan of rice and beans."_

"I think you'd like the spices."

_"I'm wearing – I _am_ – some of the most advanced sensors on the planet, Steve. There are no spices in that."_

"Shucks, I forgot. Given how little you wear the armour, and all."

_"We aren't having this conversation here,"_ said Tony. Steve grimaced. They weren't in private – Tony had a point. He cleaned Tony's plate, and waited for some sign that dinner was dismissed – no point in being a rude guest, since they _hadn't_ been thrown out yet.

But since Tripitaka had his own, separate cell, and Yulong was off in the stables – perhaps a bit demeaning, but the monastery interior wasn't built to accommodate a six-legged horse – after dinner, they _did_ have some privacy.

"So sue me, I haven't seen your face nearly three weeks – come on, Tony."

_"What,"_ Tony folded his arms across his chest – a move that the armour more menacing than it should have been – "_Getting worried that maybe I'm not the same guy who flew off?"_

Steve blinked, and ruthlessly squashed the instinct to raise his shield. That wasn't –

He hadn't seen Tony's face in nearly three weeks. He hadn't seen Tony since he'd left. They'd been confronted by a shapeshifter using illusions, and he hadn't checked – well, okay, not that it would have made a difference if he had looked – the demon had used _illusions_. But Steve had bantered with Tony and Tony had bantered back, and maybe he'd been a bit high-strung, but he was definitely Tony. Steve relaxed. "Stop trying to distract me and just take off the damn helmet, Tony."

Tony tilted his head to the side. In a gentler voice, Steve added, "You tell me – is there anyone spying on us right now?"

_"...no," _Tony admitted reluctantly. _"Steve... I..."_

Tentatively, Steve reached out to grab his shoulders. "Tony. Please."

It felt strangely like Tony was teetering on the brink of a cliff – as though here were some chance that, if missed, would not come again. Only superstition, probably. But if Tony spent the rest of his life refusing to face the world except through the filtered light of a HUD, Steve knew, deep down, that he'd never forgive himself.

_I should have stopped Tripitaka. I should have found a way._

"...okay," said Tony, and it came out half through the comm. and half through his lips as the faceplate melted away – only the faceplate, not the entire helmet, but it was more than enough to show that even if he _needed_ sleep, Tony clearly hadn't been letting himself get any. Steve had been taking his own share of watches, but if the enormous bags under his bloodshot eyes were any indication, Tony hadn't been sleeping during the break. Unwilling to try, or unable?

Tony frowned at him. "I don't look that bad."

"Yes, you do," said Steve dryly, and picked up one of the thin blankets the cell had contained, shoving it at Tony's chest. "Go to sleep, Tony." And when Tony's eyes slid to the side, "I'll keep watch."

"You're a little big for a teddy bear," Tony murmured, but he seemed to be suddenly amenable to the idea; he balled up the blanket for a pillow, curling up in a corner.

"I've been to Coney Island, Tony, I know _that's _not true." Not that he'd ever have been able to win one of those giant prizes when he was a kid – and now, it wasn't really fair to the carnies for him to try.

"You're the underdog in this fight, Steve." Tony's half-asleep, almost sing-song tone made the words not register for a moment. "He'll take you apart."

That... didn't sound like Tony was talking about Tripitaka.

"Can't say no forever," Steve breathed, the words rising with the memory.

"Sure you can," mumbled Tony. "Just forget to increment your while loop. Shitty programming, damnit Maya..."

His breathing had evened out. Steve felt his eyebrows raising as he glanced over at Tony – that had been fast. He shifted his shield on his arm and settled in for a long night – Tony _really_ needed to catch up on sleep.

Predictably, less than an hour later somebody was banging on their cell door.

* * *

"It was a _dream_," said Steve, feeling more irritated than if he'd been the one woken out of a sound sleep.

"I cannot just dismiss it!" said Tripitaka, wringing his hands. "I must know if it's true. You'll have to go see if his body is there."

"We can deal with it in the morning!"

_"If we're going to be going grave-robbing, we should probably be doing it while it's dark out," _Tony put in, a private message for Steve's ear only.

Tripitaka's story, such as it was, went like this: he had just fallen asleep – had in fact thought he was still awake – when a ghost had risen up through the floor of his cell. Upon being questioned, the ghost had said, "I am the rightful ruler of this kingdom, but my throne and my form has been stolen by an evil sorcerer, who played at being my friend until he could kill me and hide my body away at the bottom of my royal garden. In the three years since my wife has begun to suspect, but the imposter keeps her locked away and does not often see my son, and so my son does not know; and I fear greatly for them both. Please, will you help me?" At which point, Tripitaka had agreed, and then had woken up.

Except, unlike any normal person who woke up out of a weird but harmless dream, instead of rolling over and going back to sleep, he'd immediately gotten up and started banging on Steve and Tony's door.

"What exactly are we supposed to do?" Steve asked, folding his arms across his chest. "Assume we find proof. We expose the sorcerer – and what? Kick-start a revolution? We could rescue his wife and son, take them with us, but I'm not going to help topple a government without knowing that the people stepping in to run it instead are going to do a good job. But we _don't_ have time to stick around and ensure it."

_"I'm putting that up on Youtube when we get home,"_ said Tony_ sotto voice_.

"Obviously, the rightful king must be restored to the throne," said Tripitaka. "He is the one who has Heaven's mandate. And if he is a poor ruler, then Heaven shall make that clear soon enough."

Steve stared at Tripitaka, taking a moment to try to put his thoughts into some sort of order.

_"Uh. Laying aside everything wrong with your last two sentences, we're not sticking a zombie on a throne. We have enough problems with that back on Earth," _Tony spoke up at last – spoke up _aloud_, that was. The Iron Man voice sounded even more robotic than normal.

"I am no Great Sage Equal to Heaven, but I am most likely equal to the task of retrieving a wrongly-slain, restless soul from the afterlife, especially one that already has such strength of will as to appear in the mortal world as a ghost. You shall have to dig up the body and bring it back, so that I may try. Even if I am not equal to the task, a full-hearted attempt is an utmost necessity – I gave my word that I would help him and to break it would be a disaster. And as you are my disciples, you are therefore bound as well." Tripitaka planted his hands on his hips and looked at them both sternly.

Steve crossed his own arms, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, in hopes it might impede the ghost-headache he was experiencing. He needed time to think – without Tripitaka standing there holding a sword over Tony's head, and all-too-willing to use it. Even though Tripitaka hadn't so much as glanced meaningfully at the headband that Tony still wore, its presence felt like a heavy weight in the room. Hell, getting away from Tripitaka had been one reason that Steve had been so happy to discover that the monastery intended to give the 'master' his own cell, and let the 'disciples' share.

He didn't have time to think now. But something like a mission, out from under Tripitaka's eyes – because they weren't taking him along on anything that required stealth, not when he could wait here in safety – it would at least be time away from that awful collar.

"Okay," Steve gave in. "Where's this garden that he's likely to be buried in?"

Tripitaka hemmed and hawed. "I'm not sure. But if it is his royal garden, then it must be in a palace; and very likely in the capital of this kingdom. We must ask the monks here for a map."

It wasn't been that long since the evening meal; most of the monks, it turned out, were still awake – or were willing to wake up in order to learn what their guests were so excited about. There was a great deal of nodding and satisfied muttering as Tripitaka explained the situation – "The whole kingdom has had bad luck for these last three years," said one elderly monk. "I'd never seen the like of it before. Of course this would explain it."

_"If we toss somebody _off_ the throne, leaving no replacement isn't any more responsible than backing somebody we're not sure of,"_ Tony said quietly in Steve's ear.

"All our options suck. I'm aware," Steve said dryly, almost soundlessly, relying on Tony's mics to pick up his words.

_"These people seem to want the old king back. If the rest of the kingdom's the same, it's not a bad choice."_

"I'm not saying it is, I'm saying we don't know. Can't know. This is one monastery."

_"...okay, that was a bit oblique. What I mean is – it might not _be_ a choice. It might be written into the rules of this place – the throne always returns to the rightful king. By blood, and no, you don't need to do that lecture, I know you think primogeniture is so 1775."_

"Are you just playing Devil's Advocate for the hell of it?" Steve griped.

In due time, they were presented with a map. Only a small corner of the kingdom was anywhere near the road – to get to the capital, they'd need to travel far overland. Steve glanced at Tony, trying to get an assessment of how viable it was to venture off-road, but the armour's blank face was, well, blank. Even though Tony could probably have made it wear expressions – he could reform it at will, after all.

That mildly distracting thought lasted until Tony said, _"Shall we? I don't know about you, but I'm not really keen to hang around, Cap."_

"Are you sure you have the time-travel problems worked out?" Steve asked his as they made their way outside, followed by a crowd of curious monks.

_"No, but we know where we're going,"_ Tony pointed out. _"And it's not that far away."_ That was true – it was decent-sized if horses were the main mode of travel – no matter how many legs they had – but it hardly held a candle to the size of America, or even Germany.

Steve had to admit to himself that he was slightly disappointed. He'd looked forward to flying again.

_Idiot. Like that's important._

_"...so we can fly pretty close to the ground,"_ Tony finished belatedly, and Steve felt a corner of his mouth lift in an involuntary smile. _"At least until we get near enough to the city that the folding's not such a problem."_

Flying close to the ground, weaving in and out among trees, hills, and other obstacles, was a different sort of rush than being a thousand feet up in the air; Steve clung on for dear life, despite the mag-lock, and had to bite down hard on his lower lip to keep from whooping with the joy of it. People would be sleeping by now. Tony was flying slow enough not to throw off too much sound; Steve could keep his damn mouth shut, even if the rush of cold air against his face was a better high than parachuting.

The armour was black beneath his fingertips, and non-reflective; even the light from the repulsors was somehow dimmed. "Smart," Steve murmured, his words eaten immediately by the rush of wind, although it was less of a change than Tony turning his armour into clothes – and vice versa – so Steve supposed he shouldn't have been surprised by it.

_"I try,"_ said Tony, the amusement coming through loud and clear.

"Good," said Steve. "We're going to need your brain to get out of this one."

The hesitation came clearly through the armour, although Steve couldn't have pinpointed any specific clue – but he was plastered up against Tony, and that was enough. _"I wasn't playing Devil's Advocate earlier just for kicks. The road's obviously a construct, but the dimensional folding of normal space... it could be natural law here. Well, I say _could,_ in the way that Los Angeles _could_ be built on a fault zone, hey, maybe that's why there're so many earthquakes."_

"I'm not really getting what wonky space has to do with overthrowing local governments, Tony."

_"When the monks say there's been 'bad luck', it might be more than the Earthly consequences for letting a backstabbing creep rule your country. It might _actually_ be something more akin to gravity – force, effect. Lack a ruler from a particular bloodline – crops fail, kids starve, monks rabble-rouse."_

"Conjecture," Steve objected, because even for Tony, that was a pretty far leap.

_"Sure. Everything is, here," _Tony replied, so flatly that Steve found himself biting back a reply. _"Look. I told you about where I ended up – those fates that controlled everything? That wasn't just about time and space, that was about individual destinies."_

"That doesn't mean that _this_ place is like that," Steve said firmly. There were lights up ahead, the dim light of fire seen through cloth screens. The dim light of the stars overhead – there was no moon – made it just possible for Steve to see the city spread out below. It was small, by modern standards, although the palace in the northern quarter was impressive, but –

All the light became more obvious, more brilliant, as Tony cloaked them; Steve made the mistake of glancing upward, and his attention was caught by the stars, transformed from pinpricks of light to glittering diamonds.

_"It might." _Tony was talking again – it was hard to concentrate on his words. _"I told you Maklu was in a weird location – which was an understatement. The math is some of the most fucked up I've ever seen. It's located in our 3D space, yes, but it's also in everything else's 3D space, even the stuff that _isn't_ in ours."_ There was a sort of awe in Tony's voice that made Steve almost relax a bit. _"And that's my point. It's not a central set of worlds, but it's in the same space as them. The rules bleeding over seems... uh, likely, considering the way these people go on about order and heavenly will."_

They slowed, coming in to a hover over top of the palace. There were a large number of gardens stretched out below, all of which seemed well-tended except for one. That one lay behind a closed wall and looked half-dead, half-overgrown: the ornately shaped bushes and small trees of the other gardens had all died off, and the only plants remaining were choking weeds and creeping vines draped over everything.

_"I'm guessing no dragons here,"_ said Tony, and Steve had to concur – if anybody had been flying over this place, that garden would have been an enormous red flag. Unless it was simply the custom not to question the king around here.

They dropped gently into the centre of it, neither of them bothering to be careful about the placement of their boots – there was no way to stand on the ground here without stepping on some creeping weed. The ICG flickered off, turning the hitherto enchanting stonework into a gruesome spectacle that might belong in an abandoned graveyard. Steve jogged over to the gate at the entrance – it was made of stone, but in a strange way, as if somebody had first tried to board up the original wrought iron gate, and then had turned the entire thing to stone – either that, or it was carved by a sculptor with a very strange sense of art.

_"Human skeleton, buried nine feet down,"_ Tony said, and Steve turned back to see the black shadow that was the armour indicate an enormous, partially buried stone block.

So Tripitaka hadn't just been dreaming. Hopefully the poor guy's remains weren't encased _within_ the stone.

"We could always just tell him it's not here," Steve said, but it was a stupid suggestion – he didn't need to hear Tony's derisive snort to know that. If they did that, what were the odds that the ghost would just show up again? And who would Tripitaka believe? "Alright, fine. We bring him back, let Tripitaka see – but Tony, we can't just pick and choose these people's leader for them."

_"Youtube,"_ Tony half sang.

"Tony."

_"Steve."_ Tony's turned his head away. It struck Steve as an entirely _fake_ gesture – given the sensor suite the armour possessed, it didn't really mean anything. _"I... can't."_

Somehow, Steve didn't think that Tony was talking about the same thing that he was in regards to that 'can't'. "What do you mean?"

_"You take a piece of metal and you stress it – it's never gonna be as strong as it was. I broke once. I'll break again."_

"Tony..." Steve stepped forward softly, carefully, to lay a hand on the armour's shoulder. "You defied him earlier. It was one of the bravest things I'd ever seen." Not that he'd been appreciating that bravery at the time, thinking as he had that it was an innocent woman Tony was risking his life to kill, but in retrospect, knowing what Tripitaka could _and would_ do... it must have taken a hell of a lot of courage.

_"That was different. The demon would've killed him if I didn't – he'd have taken it out on me, it was the lesser of two evils. We don't have a plan here, Steve. There is no way that just refusing to do what he wants is going to make him change his mind – not this time."_

"Then we need a plan," Steve said firmly. "We'll – we need to convince him it's not in his best interests." Tripitaka had sworn to help the ghost, but he'd also said that if the king was a bad king, he'd lose the mandate of Heaven...

_"Do we?"_ Tony recoiled and stalked away, around to the other side of the stone block. _"You're hung up on the idea that we can't interfere, Cap – too many history lessons getting to you?"_ He knelt, and Steve could hear the metal of his gauntlets scraping against stone as he dug down – and then, with a heave, he flipped it up and over, sending all two-and-a-half by ten by five feet of it flying; Steve had to dodge out of the way.

"I've never liked people who trample all over others, Tony."

_"Yet you're not willing to get rid of a guy who literally murdered his way into power."_

"We've got one view of a situation – this is different than if we were going to stick around, Tony. We can't just take on responsibility for them and then abandon them. We don't know enough."

Steve watched, reluctant to help, as Tony went over to one of the larger, flatter pieces of ironwork, and chopped it away with his wrist lasers; a minute later, he had a passable shovel, and began clearing dirt from the grave at an almost alarming rate – alarming, considering that it would take them back to Tripitaka that much sooner.

Steve didn't understand. Why the hell would Tony want to finish any sooner than he had to?

_"You were willing enough to fight wars on foreign soil before."_

"That was different and you know it." It took real effort to bite back his frustration. "All we have is the word of one _ghost_."

_"Tripitaka has his way, it'll be one ex-ghost – the people here can compare kings and pick whichever one they like."_

"And we'll be – where? You can't just kick something like this off and run away from it, Tony."

Tony turned sharply; Steve imagined that if Tony had had the eyes still lit, the helmet would have been glaring at him. _"So I should run away first, ignore the problem entirely? What's going on, Steve? Since when does _Captain America_ think that _inaction_ is the lesser of two evils?"_

"I don't know!" Steve gestured sharply at the grave that Tony was digging out. "I don't know when the hell you started thinking that anything_Tripitaka_ proposes is a good idea!"

Tony was still. Then, _"Jesus Christ, Steve, you could keep your voice down."_

Steve winced, shoulders slumping. He shouldn't have gone off at Tony that way – he was making a total hash out of this. Tony had... Stockholm Syndrome, or _something_ – he'd just admitted as much. And... it wasn't like Steve had been doing anything to help him.

_"Help me finish this before someone comes and checks who the idiot yelling in the king's private garden is,"_ Tony said brusquely, tossing the shovel up to Steve. A quick boost of the repulsors carried him out of the pit he'd already dug, and over to the grating to assemble another make-shift shovel. Silently, Steve jumped down, and started shovelling out dirt.

Nobody did come and interrupt them, although they finished in short order anyway, uncovering a thoroughly skeletized corpse of a man, buried directly in soil – all of the flesh had long since rotted away. Steve stared at the arm-bone he'd accidentally knocked aside in dismay – how were they supposed to transport back a _skeleton_? It would fall to pieces.

_"Now the tricky bit."_

"We'll need a blanket, or a sheet," Steve said, grimacing. They were going to have to hope it didn't matter if the bones got all piled up – there wasn't any way that they were going to be able to transport it, not lose any of the smaller bones, _and_ keep it all arranged as it should be. It seemed horribly disrespectful to the deceased, though – even if the deceased _had_ asked for it.

_"Ye of little faith,"_ said Tony. _"You should probably stand back for this."_

Eyebrows raised, Steve jumped up and out of the pit, then crouched near the edge, watching. Plates on the armour's forearms unlatched – not melting away as they had when Tony changed the armour with extremis, but actually moving forward as a solid piece of metal: part of some device. Tony plunged his gauntleted fists into the grave-dirt, bringing the edges of the plates just level with it.

There was an enormous noise, like the sound of undoing a zipper magnified to a thunderclap, half-deafening Steve. He clapped his hands over his ears – too late – and almost missed the strange black light that flickered about the armour's fingers: visible again now, because the bottom of the grave was _gone_. Lacking anything to kneel on, Tony tipped forward, and only a quick application of the repulsors saved him from hitting the side of the grave with his face.

Cautiously, Steve removed his hands from his ears. "What the heck was _that?_"

Tony's voice through his earpiece definitely didn't help with the ringing. _"Subspace pocket. Only holds so much, though – and this pretty much puts it at capacity."_

Not that Steve really understood what _that _was supposed to mean, but – he shook his head, feeling foolish. Of all the things that Tony did or said that might be surprising, upgrades to the armour should not be among them. Although, he had said – "I thought you hadn't figured out where Bruce's extra mass comes from."

_"Because I haven't. That's definitely not this type of subspace pocket."_

There were different types? "Huh. Well, if we're not gonna be lugging a body around..." and they should still have a few hours left until dawn... "We need intel on this place. Let's get some."

Tony tilted his head. _"Fair deal,"_ he agreed, after a moment. _"Though we should probably start at the _other_ side of the palace."_

Steve snorted, already stepping forward to grab onto the armour, and be grabbed in turn by the maglock. "Yeah. You think you could have made it any louder?" The ringing in his ears was starting to fade, and over it he could hear confused shouts in the distance – private garden or no, they were going to have company shortly.

_"Oh, honey, you should quit while you're ahead – unless you _really_ want to know the answer to that question."_ The repulsors carried them upward, ICG cloaking them as soon as they cleared the garden wall. The palace was filling with lights, although not so quickly as to indicate a general mobilization – but most people would have been startled out of a sound sleep.

"See any secret evil lairs?" Steve asked, peering down at the lights below, trying to ignore their dizzying beauty. He'd just about gotten used to it when Tony shut the ICG off again, leaving them hovering almost-silently above the palace, the boots probably just as dim as the stars from down below.

_"Not so much. Throne room, though. Garden... dojo? Some sort of mini-temple. Treasury – hey, if we get a reward we should visit there, they've got some stuff that could be useful. And... aha, sorcerer."_

Steve glanced back. A tiny figure in voluminous robes was striding toward the gate of the ruined garden, holding – Steve squinted – a small ball of fire, outstretched above one hand. Well, that certainly looked like magic, although it was hard to say if it were any more or less so than a dragon. But the figure raised an arm and the stone gate dissolved, then reformed as the figure entered; and as the person then went directly to the back of the garden where there was now a giant hole in the ground, it seemed safe to say that even if this _wasn't_ their sorcerer, they were at least a party to murder. For several seconds, the figure stood stock still at the edge of the hole they'd hug, and then promptly went running back out the garden and into the palace.

_"Run run run,"_ said Tony, almost gleefully. _"Let's see where you're going. You and... your guards? Magic not enough?"_ The armour tilted forward, lazily flying over the palace – Steve assumed, following the path the sorcerer was taking inside. _"And... okay, not where I expected you to go."_

"Where's he gone?"

_"Well, unless he's got a similar view to it as the French did – to confront his loving wife."_ The repulsors cut out and they dropped down a few hundred feet until they were just above one of the rooftops. _"You'll want to hear this."_

Steve listened. "I can't hear a thing."

_"...really,"_ Tony breathed, like somebody had just given him the keys to the kingdom.

Steve glanced at him. Granted, it would be useful if they could start speaking aloud about Loki again without worrying he was hearing everything they were saying, but there were plenty of other methods of muffling sound through a wall – or a roof, in this case. And apparently this wasn't even good enough to keep Tony from overhearing, so it probably couldn't be whatever the gods used – right?

He'd point that out later. "Mind patching me in?"

The first few seconds were a rushed, sped-up conversation that Steve was barely able to parse into proper words:

_"My wife, where have you been this night?"_

_"I have been here, my husband."_

_"It is the middle of the night, and you are not asleep."_

_"My husband, I was woken by a terrible loud noise a minute ago."_

_"A minute ago? I think you are lying to me, wife."_

_"O my husband, my king, I do not lie to you; you may ask any of the guards. I have not left my chambers since I retired here after dinner."_

_"I know well that you do not need to go anywhere to pull your strings."_

_"How can I possibly do such things, my husband? You have dismissed my handmaidens; you have kept me from my son; I have not spoken to another soul un-chaperoned in three years."_ Her voice was subdued, pleading – except for those two words: 'my husband'. He couldn't have pinpointed what it was – they sounded so subservient – but they made the hair on the back of his neck rise.

This lady definitely knew something was up.

_"How can I have done otherwise? My beautiful queen, I married you thinking you desired peace as strongly as I. But that was youthful naiveté. You have conspired against me, and now I am forced to admit all along what your detractors have claimed: you are no true servant of this kingdom, but yet loyal to your birthplace. And now you have let agents into this very palace, to give them the opportunity to steal one of the sacred treasures of my house. Do you deny it, o wife?"_

_"I deny it,"_ said the queen. Her voice was shaking now. _"I deny it, my husband; and thrice, I say, it was not I."_

_"You are a liar, my queen. And so you shall be my queen no longer. You have dishonoured your office, woman. Your life is forfeit."_

"Tony," hissed Steve.

_"Not yet."_

_"I wondered how long it would take you to get to the point,"_ the queen said, her voice still shaking – but now Steve could hear the rage in every word, previously cloaked in fear. _"So you shall kill me, as you killed my husband; and will you kill my son? I dare you to do so, you filth-stained demonspawn – do it! Slay the last of my husband's line, and the land shall rise against you, and drown you in blood!"_

There was a pause. _"A feeble attempt,"_ said the sorcerer at last. _"I am not so easily manipulated as _that_. But your son... ah, by the time I am finished, he shall give his life willingly to me – as a sacrifice to appease the wrath of heaven, and deliver this kingdom eternally into my hands."_

There was a gasp, an indrawn breath, and – _"That's our cue,"_ said Tony, and dropped them through the roof.

The silk didn't tear into pieces beneath their weight: instead the strip they'd landed on ripped from where it was nailed into wooden beams and crashed down with them, its edges cracking like a whip. A woman, her head raised high, whirled to face them; another form – the sorcerer – began to drag himself free of the heavy sheet of cloth that had flattened him. He had a bare blade – a massive thing, but Steve could tell from a glance that it was perfectly balanced, and probably quite a bit lighter than it should have been if it were made of steel. That, or the sorcerer possessed strength beyond Steve's – it was a toss-up as to which it was.

"Guǐlǎo!" spat the sorcerer, stumbling to his feet. "How dare you?"

"Usually double, on occasion double-dog," said Tony, incomprehensibly. "Almost always drunk."

"Put the sword down," said Steve, because somebody had to be to the point. Something moved –

"GUAR-urk," said the sorcerer, stumbling to his knees.

Two thin needles, perhaps a quarter-inch in diameter each, had appeared through the sorcerer's throat as if by magic; and there was a hole between them, where a third needle might have gone, except that apparently it had been thrown with such force that it had continued on out the other side – indeed, it was now sticking out of the heavy silk screen somewhat behind and to the left of Steve.

Steve cast his gaze back forward, to where the queen was standing, her form the perfect finishing stance for having thrown a knife – or a set of needles. Given the way her hair was now tumbling down her back, apparently they had been some sort of hair-ornaments.

The screen door began to slide open; a heavy, ponderous movement even with the weight of at least two people behind it, judging by the number of hands filling the gap. Unless that was just one four-(or more)-armed person. Steve glanced between the queen, the sorcerer dying on the floor, steadying himself. But Tony lunged toward him and the world went bright, vivid –

"Your Majesty, you called for us?" the guard inquired, bowing low in the entrance. He did, Steve noticed, indeed have four arms.

"Yes," said the sorcerer's voice, right in Steve's ear. He nearly turned and decked Tony before his brain caught up to his instincts: he could feelthe iron grip that Tony had on his arm, but it was the sorcerer who appeared to be standing next to Steve; the body on the floor had vanished. "I'm going to be spending the night with my wife. Take yourselves and join the search, and establish your perimeter about the palace; allow none in or out. I do not wish to be disturbed before dawn."

"It will be done, your majesty," said the guard, bowing again. He had not raised his eyes above the floor, and he walked out backwards. There was a tense, still moment, as the guards heaved the screen back into place, and then as footsteps faded away outside.

"I didn't know you could do that," Steve murmured to Tony, as the illusion around him melted away. The world dimmed and became ordinary again.

Ordinary. Not lifeless. Although in the brief time it had taken, a life had been lost; the sorcerer breathed out one last breath, and it was as if that breath was all that he was: the robes he had been wearing collapsed with a gust of wind.

"Well, that solves that problem," said Tony quietly, ignoring Steve's half-spoken question. "Although we should keep our voices down; I'm not sure how good their hearing is."

Steve didn't relax, and didn't press the question, either. The queen was now standing with her hands folded into her sleeves, perfectly composed and demure, but when she'd moved, she'd moved fast. Maybe not as fast as one of the superzombies, but faster than him – and she'd just killed a man. Granted, a man who had been planning to frame her for murder and kill her son, but –

Okay, he had to admit he was having a hard time finding a 'but' here. Violence ought to be the last resort – but... hell. What had they been going to do with the sorcerer?

"Sorcerers you may be also, yet I owe you a great debt," said the queen, her voice trembling – rage? Triumph? Shock? It was hard to tell; her face was as expressionless as a mannequin's. It was a bit creepy, actually. "I have been trying to slay him since I learned the truth; but he has not turned his back to me since he slew my husband. You provided me with the first opportunity to strike I have had in three years, and you have my eternal gratitude."

Somehow, Steve kept himself from grinding his teeth.

Somehow, they'd ended up toppling a foreign government anyway. And he couldn't even say they were wrong to do it. But that was the problem, wasn't it? He hadn't _known_ if it was wrong from the start, and he still didn't.

"I can give you the keys to the treasury – " she strode forward and knelt gracefully at the muddle of robes that the sorcerer had left behind, rifling through them and coming up with several items: a set of large, oddly-shaped keys on a keychain; two scrolls; a brilliant scarlet-red feather – this the queen snapped in two without delay, hiding the halves somewhere within the folds of her own elaborate gown – a knife; and a thin rod about one foot long, intricately carved. "Take it, I beg you," she said, offering the key-ring from where she knelt, "take any of this. But let me beg you for the life of my son. He is but a small child and an innocent."

Tony looked at Steve – and then, as if realizing that he was still standing almost uncomfortably close to Steve, stepped away to inspect the silken walls. Apparently, he intended to leave _this_ conversation up to Steve – wasn't that swell of him?

"Ma'am, I'm afraid you misunderstand," Steve tried, and managed to catch himself before he could add, _'I'm afraid this was an accident.'_ "We were not here to _kill_ anyone – we came to investigate the death of your husband. We're certainly not going to harm your son. And we don't need the key to the treasury, either – we're not going to rob you. Or stick around. The kingdom's yours."

"Then – you knew," said the queen. "Word got out. He was not so careful as he thought." She cast a derisive look at the empty robes, before composing herself to placidity again. "I do not know what grievance you had against the charlatan, but I thank you for your intervention. For my vengeance, I owe you my life. And I owe you more than that, for I am a poor woman who must beg a favour: if you shall spare my son, then please, I beg you, take him with you when you go."

_"Uh,"_ said Tony, over the comm. only.

"That's really not – a good idea," Steve settled on.

"To send a child away with a sorcerer, willingly?" The queen's smile was as thin and sharp as a sliver. "A thousand mothers would scream and wail, rend their hair, and become murderers, to prevent such a thing from coming to pass. But if you shall not stay and spare him, then you shall not spare him by going, either. I cannot rule this kingdom; my husband married me for love, but my country and his have little lost between them, and his disappearance shall spell my doom: if his nobles do not have my head, then the people shall. No, an honourable suicide is the most I can hope for myself, if I can arrange it before they throw me to the executioner in disgrace. I cannot have even that hope for my son: there are too many snakes in this court and he has not yet seen his seventh full year. _Please_," she bowed down, prostrating herself fully, "Please, take him with you. You have shown that even a sorcerer can have honour – that is less than he would be taught here by his enemies, once I am dead."

Her words were like honey, pouring over his mind – Steve shook his head, hard, trying to clear them away long enough that he could think about what she'd actually _said_. The sorcerer was dead, then – and if the people liable to get into power would use a small boy as a pawn... oh, _Hell_. They were supposed to be trying not to get involved in this!

Too late for that. "Please stand up. Your husband – was he a good man?" he asked instead.

"Yes," said the queen quietly, her face still pressed against the ground. It made Steve want to kneel down, himself, and raise her up; except he wasn't sure that he could bear to touch her – the mere thought of it felt like the basest form of disrespect. "He was naive, and too wont to see the good in everyone; that is how the sorcerer gained entrance to our court. But his courage was fiercer than any raging wildfire, and his love great enough to bring two warring nations to a peace, however uneasy; and I loved him as I loved the wind, the rain, the storm."

_Damnit._

"Stay here until dawn," said Steve firmly. "We'll be back before then. No suicide. No rash actions. And stop trying to _convince_ us like that."

"You have my thanks," she replied, without lifting her head. Something in Steve's chest eased. She still seemed regal – but no longer almost sacrilegiously so.

"And – _please_ get up," he added, half in an embarrassed mutter. To the side, he saw Tony turn back toward them, one hand coming up – much like a peace offering.

The queen didn't move. Steve sighed, and stepped over to grab Tony's hand; Tony hit the repulsors the moment their fingertips touched, and they were ten feet in the air by the time the maglock engaged, locking Steve firmly to the armour. Tony didn't say a word.

"Oh, shut up," Steve said anyway. The words left a bitter taste in his mouth.

* * *

They touched down to find that the entire monastery was still awake, despite it now being very late; apparently they were all eager to learn as soon as possible of the fruits of Steve and Tony's trip. The monks clustered around them as Tripitaka stepped forward, looking disappointed that they didn't have a corpse with them.

"You didn't manage to find him? But you are back sooner than I'd thought you would be – dawn is still hours off."

"No, we got him," Steve said grimly. "We got the sorcerer, too – he's dead. I think. He didn't leave a corpse."

"Such is the fate of those who practice sorcery," said one of the monks to general nods of agreement.

"Well, then that is excellent!" said Tripitaka. "I shall journey forth and bring the rightful king back, and he may resume his throne unimpeded; and perhaps then the dry and wet seasons shall resume their proper placements within the year. But where _is_ the body?"

_"Less 'body', more 'bones'. I've got it in a subspace pocket. Where are we doing this?"_

"Here would be wise," said Tripitaka. "The monks can watch over our bodies while our souls journey forth to the underworld." No sooner had he spoken then several of the elder monks began to give directions, to clear a space and give those who were to travel room; and to fetch mats, pillows, and a great deal of incense. Junior monks scurried off, while those who were to be spectators respectfully withdrew a ways.

_"We don't know these people,"_ said Tony quietly, as soon as they had even a slight amount of clearance. _"I'm sure they're... faithful, or appear to be, but we should be careful."_

"How much resistance are we expecting to see in the underworld?" asked Steve.

"It mostly comes down to luck," Tripitaka admitted. "There are all manner of threats there. Do not worry for our corporeal forms, Tony; Yulong is nearby."

_"He's... not exactly great on land,"_ said Tony, not very diplomatically. _"I'll stay behind – if it goes south I can fly you two away to safety, even if you're not 'back'."_

"No," Tripitaka shook his head. "It comes down to luck," he repeated, "but I think your presence could tip the scales; your lances of light are powerful, and your strange ability to recognize demons is worth even more where we go now."

_"It's too big a risk."_

"Yet you cannot be spared. No, no more arguments," Tripitaka said, frowning, "look – the incense is lit."

Indeed it was, and Steve found himself instantly associating the strange, smoky-sweet scent of it with the grave, even though he could have sworn he'd never smelled it before. But it did bring sudden clarity to Tony's reluctance – he had been to an underworld before, the worst of all possible afterlives he could have visited. So if he was reluctant to venture into another... no, it wasn't out of fear of danger, Steve was pretty certain of that. Even if Tony had – broken, and Lord the word was painful to think – even then, it had been under threat of deliberate, merciless torture, not fear of pain or the unknown.

But he had made and lost a friend there.

"I think we can trust them," Steve said softly, indicating with a slight tilt of his head the monks standing all around them – albeit at a respectful distance, now that the last of the incense-bearers had retreated. "We could use you on this one."

Tony stared at him – or, well, the Iron Man mask stared at Steve. Who knew what Tony was actually looking at? But after a long moment, the armour's shoulders slumped slightly. _"Alright."_

"Bring out the corpse, then," said Tripitaka, looking at them expectantly.

_"You might want to stand back."_

Steve and Tripitaka shuffled a half dozen feet backward. The armour stared at them motionlessly. They shuffled back further, and Steve put his hands over his ears.

The panels on Tony's armour unhooked again, and he went to one knee. The sound this time was different – it wasn't something ripping out of the world, but rather like the world held its breath; the air stilled, all sound ceased – and then things _appeared_ out of thin air, with a cacophony of sound, every frequency imaginable. Steve reeled backward, staggered by the combination of base and screechingly high-pitched whines. He could _see_ some of the monks making exclamations of surprise – their mouths were moving – but he couldn't hear anything.

Tony didn't appear to notice that he'd just deafened everyone; instead, he'd stepped forward and begun sorting through everything that he'd just dumped out his 'pocket'. The skeleton and grave-dirt was there, of course, filling Steve's nose with its dour, earthy odour – but it was by no means the only thing. There were sheets of metal stacked on top of each other – gold, but also many variations on silvery stuff – and a large plastic jar full of something that looked like sand. Three arc reactors had rolled to the ground – they had a partial case that had prevented them from shattering against the flagstones of the courtyard, but _what_ they were was clearly visible. Other items were less clear, but not because they were enveloped in packing tape – on the contrary, it seemed like Tony had meant to be able to get at this stuff in a hurry. There was a laptop; several external hard-drives; some more computer equipment that Steve didn't recognize; a telescope, or possibly a spyglass; a rolled set of poster-sized paper – that made Steve blink; a phone; something that might have been an oversized tape measure in a past life; quite a lot of tinfoil; several antennae of various lengths, unattached to anything; duct tape; and a few cans of WD40. Remarkably, nothing except the skeleton appeared to have been covered by the grave dirt, which was now spilling all over the ground.

The panels on the armour's forearms rotated – which was to say, their bases slid around his arms clockwise – and Steve didn't quite realize in time that he should again put his hands over his ears to prevent himself from going _totally_ deaf from the great thunderous rip that vanished everything except the skeleton, its dirt, and three sheets of differently-tinted foil. Several of the monks, including Tripitaka, fell over.

"You could have warned the monks," Steve said, with the peculiar sensation of not actually _hearing_ himself say it. Damn. Had he ruptured his eardrums? That could cause big problems, if Tripitaka was injured like that.

Tony tilted his head – was that meant to be apologetic? Without any commentary, and moving as stiffly as he tended to around Tripitaka, Tony in the Iron Man armour was a cipher. Maybe it wasn't an apology. Tony picked up the metal sheets and crumpled them into a ball, then tossed it back and forth from hand to hand.

Tripitaka waved his hands, gesturing for them to sit down, with the corpse as a gruesome centrepiece. They did so, Steve taking advantage of a mat, while Tripitaka padded his knees with pillows; Tony just sat on the stone. The complete and utter silence in Steve's ears had given way to that familiar ringing from before; hopefully the rest of his hearing would return as quickly as it had then.

Tripitaka, if he had been deafened, didn't seem to be bothered by it: he was chanting, though from what Steve could tell by an attempt at lip-reading, it was a chant of entirely nonsense syllables, just like the mantra of constriction. Gradually, they became audible. The short way he said them, and the deliberate inflection on each, reminded Steve far more of what he'd heard of Mandarin and Cantonese than the English that Tripitaka had been speaking... although it probably wasn't English, really. Whatever let Steve _hear_ it in English mustn't have extend to this sort of thing, because he couldn't make any sense of the sounds as Tripitaka continued to chant, dragging him... down...

Steve's feet hit something solid and he stumbled, struggling to regain the balance he'd suddenly lost at finding himself standing while his body still thought it was sitting. He didn't fall – but the feeling that he was _actually_ sitting down, and that if he tried to step forward he'd turn into a pretzel, didn't go away. A _thump_ alerted him to Tripitaka losing his own battle against the dissonance; Steve leaned down, trying not to feel as though he were folding himself in half, and picked the monk up, setting him on his feet again. He didn't let go of Tripitaka's robes, either, because there was something very important missing from this picture. "Where's Tony?"

Oh. His hearing was back – at least, it was _here_, wherever here was.

Tripitaka blinked and glanced around, quick furtive glances in-between returning to studied contemplation of the sky – Steve glanced upward, but it was just a solid grey – and taking quick breaths. He looked a bit green. "I don't know. He should have come. Here, we must try again."

A sound in the background that Steve hadn't even registered – a distant voice, still chanting – stopped, and Steve nearly fell over backwards – wait, he was sitting upright, his legs were at right angles from his torso because he was _actually_ sitting. He checked his movement and glanced over at Tony, who was sitting as still as a statue.

"You are difficult to bring along," said Tripitaka; his words sounding muddy and under-water, as the last of the damage to Steve's ears healed. "Give me your hand."

With a slowness that spoke of deep reluctance, Tony raised one hand; Tripitaka seized it in his own, and began to chant again –

Knowing what was to come, Steve forced himself not to try to move this time, until he could look down and see that his legs were straight beneath him – he was standing. Then he leaned over and picked up Tripitaka, again, from where he'd fallen, again. There was still no Tony with them.

"This is very strange," said Tripitaka, and they were back in the real world as he said it. "Give me your other hand – both of them."

_"This isn't going to work,"_ said Tony in a rush. _"I don't have a soul."_

Tripitaka paused. The monks murmured – and Steve could hear that now – but only for an instant, and then discipline prevailed and they were silent. Steve felt a surge of irritation, and out of reflex, guiltily suppressed it – and then found himself experiencing a much larger swell of concern. Sure, Tony was an atheist, and he'd _hated_ what Anthony had gone on about – but Steve didn't think that was what he meant, here.

"That's quite impossible," said Tripitaka. "Of course you have a soul."

_"That's what I said,"_ muttered Tony – and yes, that was concern, because Tony _knew_ about the gem that had let Steve see souls, knew that Anthony, even if he wore pajamas all the time, was actually pretty damn powerful. The _existence_ of souls had nothing to do with faith.

Tripitaka's lips thinned. "Stop with this foolish avoidance, and cease resisting the summon," he said, with a warning tone that Steve didn't like.

_"I'm not _doing_ anything," _said Tony, overtop of the beginning of Steve's protest; Steve shut up. If Tony was able to fight this battle, Steve was more than happy to enable him. _"You're the one dragging souls out of bodies, can't you see whether or not I have one to begin with?"_

"But you're a _person!_" said Tripitaka, with an expression of dawning horror – but not, Steve thought, at Tony. It was directed _inward_, and wasn't_that_ curious? "You're my disciple! Of course you must have a soul."

_"You tell me."_

"Who told you that you didn't have a soul?" asked Steve.

_"At the monastery I went to find out about demons – there was this pig-snake... thing. Seemed to know what it was talking about."_ Tony barely turned his head toward Steve when he spoke. _"Apparently, demonic illusions only work on people who have souls."_

Since then, Tony had been working on trying to replicate those illusions – and failing. Had he been trying to confirm it?

"A grave-pig would know," said Tripitaka, sounding deeply unhappy. "I am no Great Sage, to be able to see such things; I can transport, but of course transportation is a lesser skill than true seeing. Yet if a grave-pig said it, it must be so – but, oh, this is terrible! I have been treating you as a person all this time, when you are not."

"Hey," snapped Steve. "Soul or not, he's a person."

...right?

Anthony had said that a stain on Tony's soul was driving him crazy. If he now didn't have a soul at _all,_ what did that mean for his brain? His mind? Apparently, it meant he needed sleep now – of course, the immortality curse had been tied to Tony's soul. Could it have been extremis?

The facts were, Tony had had a soul when Steve had last seen him in the other world, and he didn't have one now – assuming that this grave-pig (whatever that was) could be trusted. And between now and then... every difference could come down to extremis.

"No, he's not." Tripitaka wrung his hands together. "A being without a soul can have no true consciousness; it means he is nothing more than a construct. And I have been treating him as a person – I have used _pain_ as a tool to teach – such a thing applied to an animal, or a construct, or a child – applied to any living thing without a proper adult soul – that is base cruelty," he agonized, and Steve couldn't feel a shred of sympathy for him, not over his welling hope. Tripitaka was flighty, and given to breaking his word, but if he could actually think that this was wrong, no matter the reason _why_... "I am so sorry," the monk apologized, wretched and abject.

_"Well,"_ said Tony after a pause. _"That's... nice."_

Tripitaka burst into tears.

Steve ignored him. "What happened?" he asked Tony instead, voice soft enough to hopefully not be overheard by the monks.

Tony didn't turn toward him when he answered, continuing to face Tripitaka instead. But the answer came over the comm. line, privately, rather than aloud. _"I don't know. It could've been extremis, I guess. The grave-pig said I must've been... constructed."_

Constructed? He'd grown himself a new body? It suddenly made a horrifying kind of sense that he _could – _he could apparently turn the armour into just about anything, so why not a new body? But then what had happened to the old one? People couldn't just swap their minds in and out –_humans_ couldn't, at least. And even JARVIS had been tethered to his servers.

_JARVIS_. Oh, God. JARVIS had died. He'd been destroyed – and then Steve and Pepper had activated him again, but it hadn't been him. It had been a _clone_. Somewhere back on some Earth, Tony Stark was – Tony had said he was _dying_; maybe he was already dead, or maybe – if the curse still clung to him – he wished he was. The Tony sitting in front of Steve, then, was just a copy – _not_ just a copy, Steve told himself firmly, privately horrified. Tony was a person. _This_ Tony was a person, no matter what any quack monk or mythical monster might have to say about it.

"Do you know what happened to the – " Steve cut himself off, fixed his wording; this Tony was _real_; " – original you?"

Another pause, several seconds' worth this time. _"No."_

"If... he's dead, or," oh, Lord. He'd yelled at Tony for breaking his promise to be right behind him – because Tony... Tony might be _dead_. _That_Tony. And here was another one, in front of him – how?

_"I hadn't even thought about it,"_ said Tony, and he sounded slightly dazed. _"I – I'm _me_. I thought it got taken _away_ – oh, Jesus. The grave-pig said it couldn't – Jesus, I didn't even think about it, why didn't I think of it – "_

"You are you," said Steve, "You're a person, Tony, no matter what the Hell Tripitaka thinks. You're a person, and you're my friend."

He was. Even if he was a clone – he had all of Tony's memories, he had to be an actual person. Steve had been travelling with him for weeks... even if he'd never met him before in this body – extremis hadn't changed his personality that much. Had it?

He'd known Tony for only day before Tony had fallen through time and space; in then the six months after that he'd failed to notice that Tony didn't need to eat or sleep, and was apparently going insane; then he'd found Tony, sane but having forgotten him – and no sooner had Tony remembered than he was gone again, missing –

Steve kept feeling like he knew Tony, but when it came down to it, maybe Steve had never really known him at all. Pepper – Pepper would know. When they got back, Steve would go looking for her – maybe it wouldn't keep her safe, but he rather thought she'd want to know anyway.

_"Of course I am,"_ said Tony, his voice calm and fond. _"You can always count on that, Steve."_ It was like he'd flicked a switch – rebooted himself –

Maybe he _had_.

Steve swallowed, and forced his thoughts to stillness. Tripitaka's sobs had wound down – he was now just sniffling, wiping his nose and face on a loose fold of his robe. The monks around them were all averting their eyes politely, some speaking amongst themselves of unrelated matters – weather, recent crop failures, speculation: on whether the king would change anything once he was returned to life and his throne; on whether the prince could be considered loyal after being raised by an imposter for three of his most impressionable years; on whether the common people might not grow to love their foreign queen more after learning the truth behind the rift between her and her husband for the last three years.

"Don't be ridiculous," a more elderly monk said to a group of four speculating about that last. "If the sorcerer is now dead then his deception may never be revealed; after all, with a sorcerer there is never a body to display as proof. The king claiming that he has been dead and impersonated for three years will make him seem crazy, and the kingdom even weaker than it already is after these past terrible three years. No, very few will ever know of our queen's commendable loyalty and clear sight: but the king shall know, and given how besotted with each other they were when they married, no doubt he shall be all the more willing to listen to her wisdom in the future."

Steve glanced upward at the sky. It was still pitch dark, but the monk's words had recalled urgency to them – they didn't know how long it might take to bring the king back from the underworld, after all. Hopefully, he wouldn't be just a walking skeleton when he got back. If Tony didn't have a soul... then the repercussions were something that Steve would need to think about, but not here and now. Right now, it just meant that he wasn't coming with them.

"Tripitaka," said Steve. "We need to hurry this up. We made the queen promise to wait until dawn, but after that... I think she might commit suicide."

Tripitaka's eyes grew as round as saucers, and he wiped his nose on his robe one last time. "Honourable death to accompany her husband? Oh, no. You are correct – we must go."

"Tony," Steve said. "Watch our backs."

_"Always."_

Tripitaka took a deep breath, and if his voice was unsteady when he began the chant, it quickly evened out. The transition to the underworld was even easier the third time, as was retaining his balance once he got there. Tripitaka, it seemed, didn't learn quite so fast – a 'thump' marked him falling over and then he scrambled to his feet again.

Despite his dislike of Tripitaka, Steve found himself asking, "Why don't we just do this standing up?"

"Then our bodies would fall over, and that is even more disorienting," said Tripitaka with a shudder. "And once the body is lying down, it is impossible to walk in this place; gravity is wrong." He peered about the grey mists and sighed in disappointment. "I had hoped the king would be here to greet us; such an active ghost may come very near to the borders of life and death in reality as well as in dreams. But it seems that we must venture deeper in. Be on your guard."

Steve tried staring into the depths, but saw nothing more than he had on his first two trips here. This place's most remarkable feature was how utterly featureless it was. The ground was some kind of grey stone – he kicked at it – or maybe dirt, spread unnaturally evenly without appearing to have been laid down by someone. This didn't change, in any direction, as far as Steve could see; eventually, the grey ground merged with the gentle grey mist in the air, creating an almost seamless join with the – surprise, surprise: grey – sky. There was no one else around, living _or_ dead.

"Which way do we go?" asked Steve.

Tripitaka's expression was grim as he turned himself around, checking the sky – Steve turned around, too, ignoring the twinge in the base of his skull that told him his spine should have snapped with the motion. "Backwards."

They started walking – at Tripitaka's pace, which was pretty slow. Steve kept a wary eye out, but for all of Tripitaka's dire warnings, nothing immediately appeared to try to eat them. Monsters continued to not appear as they kept walking, but the creepy mist made it easy to stay on his guard. The ominous, discordant chanting he could just _vaguely_ hear – but only when he wasn't trying to – made it even easier, even though he knew that it was only Tripitaka, back in his body, chanting the spell to keep them there. Though how somebody's body could keep chanting a spell, yet not manage to stand on its own... well, Steve wasn't a magician, or a sorcerer – or any sort of magic-user. Or high-level-science-user, as Tony would say.

But he had a pretty good sense of time, and they were rapidly running out of it. "Are we actually going anywhere?" he asked Tripitaka.

A slight stir of air, and Steve turned to look; the shadowed outline of a bird winged its way overhead– an owl, he saw, as it came briefly came close enough to not be so obscured by the mists. It made Tripitaka nod, still grim and unhappy. "We are on the right path."

"That is a matter of perspective," said a voice from near Steve's left knee.

Steve _jumped_ back, shoving Tripitaka behind him – and then immediately felt the heat of embarrassment colour his face. It was, improbably, a housecat. A rather _large_ housecat, admittedly, one that would have put any of the old Toms in his childhood Brooklyn to shame... and one that could talk. Actually, Steve really _didn't_ know that it wasn't dangerous. What was 'just' a cat, down in the world of the dead?

Tripitaka looked pleased by it, though, and bowed deeply to the creature. "Cat, you do us honour with your presence."

"Of course I do," said the cat – somehow, not arrogantly: it was just stating a fact, and one that Steve found himself inclined to agree with before he realized what he was thinking. "You looked like you might be of some amusement. Who are you?"

"I am the monk Tripitaka, and this is my disciple, Steve Rogers," Tripitaka did the introductions. Steve bit his tongue before he could object. They were talking to a creature from the underworld – in this, he supposed, he _was_ following Tripitaka. Even if he hated the thought of it.

The cat looked deeply unimpressed. "You are _not_ Tripitaka."

"Not the original, no," said Tripitaka anxiously. "But I was appointed to go to the west by the Bodhisattva Kuan-Yin."

"If you are aiming to go west, then you are _certainly_ not on the right path," said the cat, with a rumbling purr that could almost have been a growl. It paced around them, and Steve found himself edging out of its way – which was ridiculous. It was a cat. Not a tiger.

Then again, Yulong was a dragon...

The cat winked at him.

"We're taking a detour," said Steve. "We need to find the king of the local realm above and return him to life before war breaks out, civil or otherwise."

"A worthy goal," said the cat, seeming to settle back into its skin again – less a tiger, more a cat. Even though it was the _exact_ same size. "You have both strength and courage to be willing to come here, and at another time I'd be very interested to see how you might fare deeper in; but though honourable in itself, your cause here is not one worthy of delaying your journey above. Time is running very short, mortals."

"What do you mean?" asked Tripitaka in a small voice.

"Heaven is under siege." The cat settled onto its haunches and began to lick its paws, its eyes half-squeezing shut. "Your friend has done something catastrophically stupid."

"Tony?" Shit. What _now?_

"Yes. I'd hurry it up if I were you – things are all falling to pieces. West has become east, and east west; north and south are both pointing rather downward; it is all a muddle. Very dirty." Although the words were without inflection, something in the cat's fur managed to give the strong impression that it did _not_ like dirt.

"What's Tony done?" And, though he hated it – it would have to be asked at some point: _which_ Tony?

"If anyone were quite sure, it wouldn't be such a problem," said the cat. It lowered its paws and gave them both a gimlet stare. "The king is standing twelve feet to your left. I'd take him and go, before anyone notices he's missing."

"What – " Steve tried, _tried_ to keep the cat in his field of view – but even though he'd have sworn he kept it just at the edge of his vision, between one second and the next it was no longer there; there was nothing sudden about its departure, just an absence that clearly announced the cat was gone.

The king, on the other hand, was just as suddenly _there_ – had the cat brought him? Steve had no idea. He seemed to be a young-ish man – he couldn't have been older than thirty at most – despite having some premature grey hairs; he was dressed in rich clothes that fairly popped with colour against the dismal background. "Oh!" he exclaimed, sounding pleased. "Here you are."

"So we are," said Tripitaka, crossing over to take the king's hand. And then his chanting stopped, and they were elsewhere – they were back in their bodies. The king was sitting up with grave-dirt all over him – but he wasn't a skeleton. He was even wearing the same clothes that he'd had on as a soul.

_"Okay, that was... interesting,"_ murmured Tony in Steve's ear. _"That could give Bruce a run for his money. So long as it's the correct guy?"_

"According to the talking cat, it was," said Steve, standing up.

"That was the White Tiger, the Guardian of the West," said the not-so-dead king, standing up and brushing dirt from himself. He managed to make the gesture look regal despite the stains that remained, and despite being even shorter than Tripitaka. "That he showed himself is a great blessing upon your journey – and upon my return. Holy monk," he turned to Tripitaka and bowed, "devoted disciples," he bowed in turn to Steve and Tony each, "you have my very great thanks."

"You are welcome," said Tripitaka, but he still looked troubled. Well, he'd been troubled before they'd left – hopefully, he was still feeling bad for torturing Tony. Steve couldn't spare him much sympathy.

_"We better get you back to your palace,"_ said Tony, standing as well in a fluid, yet highly mechanical motion. _"I think your queen can fill you in from there."_

"Oh my queen, I know well her loyalty," said the king, for a moment sounding utterly besotted – and then he smoothed out his face to blankness, much like how his queen had covered her own emotions. Maybe it was a royal thing. "And my son! I wonder if he will not have forgotten me entirely..."

"I'm sure he'll remember you soon," said Steve, but it was a bit doubtful. He couldn't remember much of his own father, after all, who had died when Steve was a similar age to the prince... but this boy had his father _back_. And probably hadn't realized his dad was missing in the first place.

_"Grab hold," _said Tony, offering the king an arm, and, privately, _"Sorry, Steve. One passenger flight only."_

Steve grimaced, and held in his objection. Tony didn't need to spare an arm to carry _him_, not with the maglock – but if he didn't want to take more than two people, well, Tony was the pilot. And the engineer. Plus, they were in a hurry – apparently, they needed to get to Maklu before whatever Tony had been trying to do had time to... what? Destroy it? That seemed pretty far-fetched, whether it was meant to be accidental _or_on purpose.

Steve stood back, watching a dead man be carried into the sky by a twenty-year-younger clone of one of his closest friends, contemplating what that friend might have done to make space and time go sideways – because Steve had been given a warning by a talking cat while he was having an out-of-body experience to go to the underworld.

Far-fetched? More like _highly likely_.

"Honoured Sage," said an elderly monk whom Steve recalled seeing before, but only at a distance – he had been hanging in the back of the crowd – "Forgive me. I doubted my brothers and sisters who believed you could venture forth into the Underworld and bring back our king, but you have done so, and in the doing restored the balance of the kingdom. Please, will you stay a while, and share even the smallest part of your wisdom with us?"

"Oh," said Tripitaka, looking both pleased and discomfited. "Well, er. I haven't gotten a chance to do much teaching since I started this journey..."

"We're in a hurry," said Steve, pitching his voice to be heard only by Tripitaka's ears.

"Oh," said Tripitaka again, deflating a bit. "I'm sorry, brother, but my disciple reminds me of what is right and true. While in the Underworld we were honoured to meet the White Tiger, and he impressed upon us the importance of haste. As soon as my other disciple returns, we must set out."

At this the monks all looked disappointed – until the one that had greeted them first of all clapped her hands, and said, "Then we must ensure provisions are made! You, you, and you," she nabbed trio of young monks with a glance, "no shirking, now, I'll need your help..."

The rest of the monks began to disperse to their chores. Tripitaka stared after them mournfully. "I do miss teaching – teaching those with _open_minds." He turned to consider Steve.

Steve stared back at him, keeping his gaze level, and focused on not _saying_ anything. At length, Tripitaka sighed and turned away, his shoulders slumped once more.

* * *

"Tony." Steve's voice was low, barely audible to human ears – and as clear as a bell to any of Tony's mics, whether the one in Steve's comm. unit or the ones he had scattered about the armour.

_"Mmhmm?" _Tony thought back in reply – thought made audible; who needed lips? Lips were slow, clumsy things – so was human speech, for that matter. It was a damn good thing that several parts of him had been tapped into eavesdropping on designated VIPs, back when he'd gotten lost in the internet – other bits of him hadn't been in positions where they'd needed to decipher human speech in real-time, and when he'd all come back together... it had been hard enough to slow down again, to make such plodding sounds _comprehensible_, even with parts of him that _did _have recent practice in the art. Without those...

He banished the thought. Steve was talking; since he hadn't been paying attention enough to switch over to real-time processing, Tony's audio centres filtered each word and compressed their meanings into tiny fragments of data that were delivered in pico-second bursts. It made for a terrible way of listening; he'd already forgotten about the previous word by the time the data for the next arrived. The switch only took a few pico-seconds itself, and then he replayed what Steve had actually said, stringing it together so that it made sense:

"What aren't you – telling me?"

**_oh, joy_**

_"Well, _that's _not of a loaded question,"_ said Tony cautiously. What wasn't he telling Steve? Jesus Christ. The relative location of Asgard – of Maklu – of Earth; calculated wormhole routes from the quantum processors; the _plans_ he had, not-so-very deep in his head, of Armageddon weapons; the results of his attempts at fabricating some of them.

If he was a clone, a copy – suddenly some of those weapons became a lot more viable. Test runs had always been too risky – what if he succeeded at incapacitating himself, but not at destroying his soul? Or what if he _did_ succeed, but it didn't work the way he thought it might? Yet now... seriously, why hadn't he thought of copying himself over before?

Or, well, apparently he _had_, but that memory hadn't been downloaded into this new body along with the rest of them. Which left the question – why _not?_

"There was a – cat down in the – underworld," said Steve, apparently forgetting to keep his voice hushed this time.

Tripitaka overheard, from his position atop Yulong's saddle. "That was no cat; the king said he only appeared to be such. In truth, he was as his shadow cast him: the White Tiger."

They were back in the road, having left the monastery in something of a hurry, with bags full of supplies and little to no rest achieved by those who needed it – which didn't include Tony, thanks; his hour had been plenty. But Steve looked like he could have used a nap – except that he'd been in full agreement with Tripitaka that the needed to hit the road as soon as possible, and neither of them had been inclined to explain at the time. Which... meant that they probably blamed him.

**_oh joy _**Tony thought again, which did, possibly, make him feel a little tired.

"It said that Maklu – was under threat – that it was breaking apart," said Steve evenly – remarkably evenly, considering the pace at which they were sprinting along the road had him breathing pretty hard. "Because of something you'd done?"

**_okay genuinely wasn't expecting _that...**

"The White Tiger's mere presence is an indicator of what now assails Heaven," said Tripitaka dismally. "Ever has he been the Guardian of the _West_."

_"Right," _said Tony slowly, _"And we're going... ah._" Because if they were _going _west, then they were _approaching _from the east. Okay, that was pretty stupid of him – he shut down some of the other programs he'd had running and turned more of his brain over to the present conversation. If there was something of Prophetic Importance going on, and apparently he was at threat of blowing up a realm, or something –

The last time he'd been in a death god's realm, he'd not listened to Hel's advice – or taken her offer. And sure, the reasons she'd given for it had been a pack of lies, but the offer itself –

He was such a moron.

_"What _exactly_ did it say?"_ he demanded.

"That Heaven was under – siege," said Steve, still keeping his tone even – neutral. That was good; there was only the slightest trace of judgement in there, of censure. Steve had a better poker face than Tony'd realized. "That east was west and west was east – I guess that's demonstrated – and that everything else was pointing in – weird directions too, all messed up. Things were falling to pieces. And that _you'd_ – done something pretty stupid – except nobody was sure what it was."

_"Great, that makes all of us,"_ Tony muttered. _"I've done a lot of stupid things, Cap, if you want me to list all of them it'll take me all day."_

"We don't have anything – better to be talking about," Steve pointed out.

_"Steve, the last time I was told something like that by a death god, it wasn't actually anything _I'd_ done... yet. Possibly. Depends on your point of view."_ Something he _would_ be doing? Given the way this place mucked with space-time... and it was connected to the prime worlds of this cluster, too. Maybe moving backwards in time would be possible, here, as it wasn't in the branch-worlds. Maybe death-gods in general just had good foresight.

Given what he was carrying around in his subspace pocket, things he _might_ do had real application. If Loki was in Maklu – all bets were off.

Not that he thought Loki was, though, or he'd have siphoned processor space to return to the ever-thorny problem of how to make it a quicker draw. Unfortunately, he couldn't look _into_ the subspace pocket to see what he was pulling out – not without leaving it vulnerable to being opened by anyone else with a subspace reducer – and so had to jump out _everything_ whenever he was searching for even one item. But, hey, if there was a real chance that Loki _was_ in Maklu – as indicated by the idea of him doing something really stupid – then he _should_ be working on getting it out quickly.

If not, then it would just have to wait until after he got the key to curing extremis, could write up a patch for it, and send Steve back home to dole it out to the masses. Although at that point he'd be going around openly armed with the thing, so a quicker subspace draw wouldn't be necessary...

**oh,** he realized, and could have laughed out loud. **_of course_**

He was a clone. He was a clone, carrying around a WMD – of course he was a clone. Really, the _first _thing he should have thought of was the question of how many versions of him were out there. But that was probably bound up in why his original self had deleted the knowledge of being a clone. No wonder Steve had had to think of it for him. Did that mean that he should stop speculating about it?

"I'd like it to not be – your fault," Steve admitted. "But your first response doesn't exactly – inspire confidence, Tony."

Tony sighed. _"I have quantum and conventional processor nodes spread throughout my body to allow for heavily distributed computing –_thinking_, Steve. If I were to try to explain to you everything I'm doing, even just the things that could potentially end horribly for somebody – lemme put it like this: we'll get to Maklu first. Right now I'm mostly working on filling an in the eleven-dimensional map of the universe, because this road is one gigantic inter-galactic highway – "_ inter-galactic, inter-reality, same difference – _" – and I'm trying to convince myself not to attempt to hack it. Since I haven't made the attempt yet, I'd say I've been pretty successful so far."_

"Do _not_ break the Great Road," said Tripitaka sternly, igniting half a dozen panic subroutines.

**_and that's a pretty good incentive not to..._**

**_stopstopstopstopstoppleasestop_**

"And what else are you – working on?" Steve asked relentlessly. "I'm not asking for details, Tony – I'm asking for a general idea. You asked me to come along. Part of being in a team – is having somebody to bounce off – of. To check they're not real _dumb_."

**_shit why not _**_"I told you I design WMDs in my head. I don't have any plans to use 'em on Maklu. But I've got a god to kill, and I'm sure he's not going down easily."_

Steve's eyes widened. "If he's in Maklu – "

_"Cross that bridge when we get to it, Steve."_

"So you have at least – one with you." Ooo, smart.

The lie came without hesitation. This baring of his soul – hah! – had gone too far. _"No."_

"You said – "

_"You asked what I was working on,"_ Tony reminded him. Remorse subroutines, and guilt, and –

**_stop_**

**Warning: critical fault processes may be affected.**

**_override_**

_"We're at war, Steve. With a guy who can bend and break reality – yes, what did you _think_ I was working on?_" Absence of guilt, of negative emotions directed inward, led to outward-seeking anger. _"Do you think I should just stand back and let him win, let him fuck everybody over again? I've got plenty of _dumb ideas_ – maybe one of them can kill the son-of-a-bitch!"_

**_stop_**

"If you rebel against Heaven, it will not end well for you," Tripitaka observed sadly.

_"Probably,"_ Tony agreed._ "I'm going to scout ahead._" Roller-skates formed, and between one-second and the next he was rolling along the road instead of running, while he realigned the repulsors at the backs of his ankles.

"Wait," said Steve.

_"Save it for tonight,"_ Tony snapped, and hit the thrusters.

* * *

_The problem with wonky space-time's the same as the problem with the twenty-first century,_ Steve thought sourly. _No good radio._

It was night – late night; he, Yulong, and Tripitaka had run for hours past sundown before Steve, after stumbling one time too many, had given into the inevitable and indicated they should stop and camp by the side of the road. Fortunately, they were again in an area of only semi-civilization, and so weren't squatting on any farmer's fields to do so. Unfortunately, they hadn't caught up to Tony, and Tony hadn't returned on his own.

_Not exactly your most diplomatic moment, Rogers._

He was beginning to wonder why Tony _had_ asked him to come with him on this trip. Tony had said he _needed_ Steve to come – why? In the beginning Tony had told him things – explained things – but he was working on WMDs and an entire world was under threat from him: something that would have seemed crazy back in those innocent days before a zombie plague threatened all of Earth. And Tony didn't even seem to regret it. Seemed to think it was necessary.

The memory of Amora's nigh-infinite soul, stretched out behind and beside and beyond her, made Steve's hand pause as he stirred the beans cooking in the pot. Tony had seen Loki kill not a world, but a universe full of them – as many worlds as Amora had had selves. Steve hadn't been able to see an end to her – she had been, in that moment, as great as God. She wasn't, of course – she was no more God than Steve was – but she was... _more_...than any mortal.

Steve tried to imagine countless Earths in the place of her countless reflections, and couldn't.

But Tony had wanted Steve to come. Maybe he'd wanted Steve to stop him from dooming one more world – if that was going to happen.

Tripitaka came to stand beside him as he ladled dinner out into their bowls. As was usual, he took his without offering thanks or even a nod of gratitude. What was _not_ usual was how he didn't retreat to the other side of the fire after, to eat in silence while meditating, or whatever it was he did.

"You don't respect me, do you?" the little monk asked, when Steve raised an eyebrow at him.

What was Steve supposed to say to _that?_ The obvious answer caught in his throat. Even if Tripitaka had gotten it into his head that Tony wasn't really a person and that only people were somehow worthy of being tortured – two completely twisted ideas that had somehow combined to form a favourable outcome, but not one that Steve could trust for a moment – even if Steve hoped Tripitaka might refrain from using the collar on Tony for _Tony's_ sake, he couldn't trust that Tripitaka wouldn't use it to get back at _Steve_. He'd threatened it before, after all. Steve had travelled to the Underworld; presumably _he_ had a soul.

"I wouldn't say that," Steve settled on, at length.

"In my home temple," Tripitaka said slowly, settling himself on the ground as he did – unfortunately, not on the opposite side of the fire, despite Steve's desire to be away from him, "I was not respected because I was a small person, physically weak and clumsy. I had ideas, and meditation, but no power to force others to see them. But now I do have power, and you still don't respect me. Is it because you are large and strong, while my strength is that of a holy power?"

Steve stabbed at the beans in his own bowl with enough force to turn them to mush. Oops. "I used to be a tiny little guy. Just as clumsy as you. Wouldn't've respected you back then either. You're a bully."

"I'm on a holy quest," said Tripitaka, offended, but there were tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

Steve rolled his eyes, letting the flickering firelight hide the motion, and managed not to say anything, keeping his attention on his meal instead. The beans tasted like wet paper. Steve made himself finish them off quickly anyway – he was tired, he needed sleep, and sleeping would provide a good excuse to cut short this conversation with Tripitaka.

"I made a horrible mistake with Tony, I know," said Tripitaka miserably. "I was foolish, and unwise."

"Yeah, and you're sitting there feeling sorry for yourself instead of thinking about how to make amends," Steve snapped. He never had been much good at staying quiet. But if Tripitaka was willing to _think_ – willing to have compassion –

"If I let you leave, I will fail on my quest and never reach Heaven," whispered Tripitaka. "That would be a great evil. This must be the lesser one. It must." His voice grew stronger as he spoke to himself.

So much for that idea.

"Yulong, you've got first watch," Steve told the dragon-horse, getting a muffled horsey noise in reply. He stuck a thick branch on the fire, to keep it going through Yulong's watch, and laid himself out. Almost before he was fully horizontal, he was asleep.


End file.
